Gifts of Unknown Things

 I've just finished reading Gifts of Unknown Things by Lyall Watson and must say I love his books.
This is the third one I had read of his and I'm hooked, I want to read all of his books now.

Mind, Body and Spirit Festival:

 June 29th

I started reading Gifts of Unknown Things on Sunday the 30th June 
(the Dolphin card above is number 30) and finished it today. 

I found this "Gympie Cooloola Tourism" brochure among my magazine pile I'm working my way through, as I wrote last week.
For those who don't know, Lyall Watson died in Gympie Australia on 25th June 2008 while visiting for a relative's wedding.

Lyall Watson

Gympie is not known for dolphins, in fact it is an inland gold mining town, but there are beaches like Rainbow Beach and Fraser Island not too far away by car.

Rainbow Beach ... you know how I like
rainbows if you've followed this blog

My mother's family grew up around Gympie, to be more precise Imbil, where this steam train runs to from Gympie, on this tourist steam train ride.

In the book Gifts of Unknown Things a whale washes up on the beach, but the locals refuse to help get it back into the water because of a religious holiday and the whale eventually dies (this is a true story, by the way).
Today when I finished reading the book, five killer whales washed up on Fraser Island, not far from Gympie, two of them dying.

5 whales stranded on a
sand bar off Fraser Island

Five killer whales stranded off Queensland's Fraser Island freed; two others die

Getting back to the dolphins though, the last page of the book ends with Lyall being fare-welled by a young girl doing a dolphin dance.

And for all The Shining fans out there, the biggest shock in the story takes place on page 237, and you won't see this coming, that's for sure ... but I'll give you a hint with this picture.

The Iceman Cometh 

in March Sync

Lyall with his niece Katherine,
who lives in Brisbane now.

The Cosmic Egg 

and the Dragon

Lyall's niece Katherine is a play-write who lives in Brisbane.

My Night in Motherland

I saw Katherine's  play 'Motherland' last year, as my work mate Warrick Fraser (Fraser Island?) worked on the lighting for the play.
Click on the link under the yellow program to read that post.

My mate "Wazza" (he hates me calling him that...so I do) Fraser

This book of Lyall's would make the perfect play - 
Gifts of Unknown Things.
Lyall has left a great legacy to readers like me who just love books like this.
He was ahead of his time and his books are just as relevant today.

Highly recommended.

Here's my friend Warrick Fraser's clip of a powerful journey of lost souls transformed by time.
"Valtari' Music Filmclip Submission for Sigur Rós 'The Valtari Mystery Film Experiment'
Written, Directed & Produced by Warrick Fraser
"Valtari" Music Score by Sigur Rós 
www.sigur-ros.co.uk
 http://www.warrickfraser.com/WF_Multimedia/Warrick_Fraser_Multimedia.html