It Must Be Time to Put Up the Christmas Decorations.

A Christmas feast in November?

I had this overwhelming thought come into my head that I should go outside and have a smoke (I only have one a day, as a form of therapy to calm my nerves from all of the s#!+ happening in my life at the moment and contemplate the meaning of life, sort of like a deadly meditation, ironically enough, while I proceed to endanger my lungs further down the track, if I make it that far) and as I'm sitting in my chair looking up at the approaching nighttime sky I see a spider, which I thought looked shaped like a red-back spider (and I have seen my share of those), but thought it was weird that one would be spinning a web so high off the ground, and while I sat there watching, a little beetle hit the web and the spider rushed to it and started to wrap it up in web.

I then thought that I wish I had my cell phone on me so I could document this moment, so I put the smoke down and rushed into the unit hoping that the spider would hold that pose until I came back ... which it did, or you wouldn't be seeing these pictures in this post.

After I had taken the picture above a Christmas beetle flew past almost hitting the web, which I thought would have destroyed the spider's handy work if it had of hit it.

But just to prove me wrong, the next minute one of these beetles hit the web and stayed there, to my amazement.
Then the spider rushed over and gave it a few good bites and proceeded to wrap it up in web.

As I'm witnessing the wonders of nature at work the f#cking mosquitoes are having a good feed on my leg, even though I was wearing camouflage pants to fool the bitches:-)

Just to give you an idea of the time of day (6:50 pm) here is a shot of my garden light.

Now the weird thing is that in Australia we call these rather stupid beetles "Christmas Beetles", because they come out around Christmas time and just fly into anything, like solid brick walls and smokers sitting in chairs minding their own business while slowly killing their lungs and getting bitten by mosquitoes, while contemplating why life really sucks so much.

Christmas Beetle

The funny thing though is that I have been out here every night at around this time watching the night sky and this is the first time that I have seen a Christmas beetle, and there are heaps around tonight.
Tomorrow is the 1st of December, which is time to put up the Christmas decorations and these beetles are right on time, not only that, but according to Wikipedia, "Christmas beetle is a name commonly applied to the Australian beetle genus Anoplognathus. 
They are known as Christmas beetles because they are abundant in both urban and rural areas close to Christmas. 
Christmas beetles are large (20-30 mm long) members of the scarab family that are noisy and clumsy fliers, similar to the cockchafers of Europe. 
They typically have elytra that are a dark or light brown, or green, in some species with a green-yellow iridescence.".
Being a fan of Jung's theories of synchronicity I find it quite synchy that they are related to scarab beetles.

 Well, I guess I had better get my Chrissy decorations up tomorrow, as who knows, it might be my last Christmas, if I don't give up the smokes?-)
Fingers crossed:-)

Walk On!

WALK ON?

Page 48 of Into the Heart of the Himalayas, by Jono Lineen

The universe seems to be throwing two words at me constantly lately, as if to drum a message deep into my conscious thoughts to truly take note of - WALK ON.

Johnny Walker Red? Walk on?

PLEASE NOTE: I am not endorsing the drinking of alcohol in this post, as I am well aware of the problems people have with alcohol in this society.
The mention of alcohol in this post is to tell my own personal story only.
Regular drinking of spirits especially, is a sure way to a very sorry life.
Like anything, moderation is the key to a happy life.   
It all started around Father's Day (which is in early September in Australia where I live) when I received the above leaflet in my junk mail advertising liquour specials as gifts to give for Father's Day.

Thirsty Camel? Tracks? Brisbane Lions?

I had just finished reading the book and watching the movie Tracks (for the second time) and recalled in the book Robyn drinking a bottle of scotch on her trek through the Outback of Australia.

The Tracks of Synchronicity?

I also found it amusing to stumble across this Camel Balls bubblegum while putting my lotto on one day while I was in the middle of reading the book Tracks, and Robyn had written about castrating her camels, so they wouldn't be aggressive on the trek.
Ouch! 

Walk on?! Ouch!

Crossing Paths With the "Camel Lady" at the BBWF
With all these camel synchs and talk of scotch I thought I should treat myself to a bottle of Johnny Walker Red for Father's Day, since this was the first time that I would not be living under the same roof as my boys, even though I normally just drink beer, or wine, I felt there was some message here in my intended purchase.

So, since I don't normally buy alcohol from the Thirsty Camel, I had to find out where the closest store to me was.

Once more 

into the fray ...

Turns out it's the bottle shop that is at the entrance to the Brisbane Lions club right down the road from where I live, in the old IKEA building that I worked in most of my life.

I knew that there was a bottle shop in there, but I didn't know it was part of the Thirsty Camel franchise.

The Family brick that was outside the Gabba
 for 13 years from 2002, til now

Little did I know at the time that the Brisbane Lions would write to me later in the year to ask me to pick up my brick that had been outside their playing field for 13 years.
A Meditation on Life and Death

Apparently after all of these years the Brisbane City Council deemed the bricks too dangerous to WALK ON?!

Robyn Davidson and Jono Lineen
at the BBWF, 2014

OK, so here is the post about Jono Lineen's book that I promised to write about in this recent post I wrote about Bindis -
A Walk Through the Bindis
And congratulations to Bindi Irwin for taking out Dancing with the Stars in the US, since I wrote that post. 
I'm sure Dad is a proud father right now ... and yes people, I know he is dead, but I happen to believe, and with good reason, that there is life after death.

Now, back to my reading Jono's book Into the Heart of the Himalayas and the strange synchs that I had while reading it.

I never ended up meeting Jono at the BBWF in 2014, but I did attend the talk he was involved in on Saturday the 2nd of August 2014, titled Traveler's Tales.
I didn't go to see Jono speak though, I went to see and hear Robyn Davidson, but I was impressed by what Jono had to say during this talk and I decided to by his book the next day.

Jono's book sat in my "To Read" pile until about September this year when I saw that the film Everest was going to start at the local cinema soon and with all of the upheaval in that region in 2015 with earthquakes I wanted to get through Jono's book before the movie came out.

I have to tell you that I loved this movie when I saw it, but I also had a "Six Degree of Separation" reason to see this movie also, as a co-worker of mine named Steven had a brother in Toowoomba who lived next door to a young lady who was attempting to climb to the summit of Everest when the earthquake struck there this year.
Mt Everest avalanche: Queensland teenager Alyssa Azar determined to reach summit despite disaster

I see that Alyssa is going to try to get to the top a third time now.
I think I would have countered my lucky stars and given up on it, but I admire her spirit and will surely be interested in following her progress after watching the movie Everest and thinking how brave, stupid, or both these people are who attempt the climb.
Queensland adventurer Alyssa Azar survives second Nepal tragedy
I certainly wish her luck and acknowledge that she has bigger balls than I do, metaphorically speaking, that is.
Two of us: Glenn and Alyssa Azar

In the movie Everest they talk about the "Death Zone" which is pretty much the area I have circled in Jono's book cover above (I hope that is a picture of Everest on Jono's book cover, or I'm going to look pretty stupid ... again;-) where your body literally starts to die because of lack of oxygen (unless you have an oxygen tank, you dirty cheat;-).
Remember that the movie Everest is based on a real life story, it is not something that was made up by a Hollywood script writer ... for once.
After seeing the movie Everest I now know that there are a lot of dead climber's bodies still frozen up there in that circled "Dead Zone" that I have marked with the red ring on the cover of Jono's book.

I notice that Alyssa has the above motivation poster on her webpage and while I half concede that she is right, after watching the movie Everest and seeing more experienced climbers than her lose their lives, I would say that it's not so much the mountain that you have to worry about, but the weather. 

I thought Everest was a film worth checking out and I hope Alyssa has seen the movie just to know that it is no walk in the park, and I'm sure she has.
Every time that I picked up Into the Heart of the Himalayas after having seen the movie Everest, I couldn't help looking at the picture on the front cover of Jono's book and seeing the "Death Zone" and imagining those frozen corpses that are still up there to this day. 

As far as climbing Everest goes, I'll just stick to virtual reality climbs instead.
Climbing Solfar's photoreal Mt Everest is virtually the real thing
I certainly can see the attraction of climbing, but I'll stick to my own league when it comes to hill climbs.
Climb Every Mountain?
Everest will never be placed on my bucket list, I'm afraid ... and I mean I'm afraid in literal terms.

I started reading Jono's book around mid September in an effort to have it finished by the time the movie Everest came out at the cinema and the first words that struck me when I started reading the book were on page 48 where Jono writes that the Buddha's last words to his disciples were, "walk on".
And I'm sure the Buddha wasn't throwing in a product placement for Johnny Walker scotch, either, since most Buddhists don't drink alcohol ... and besides scotch hadn't been invented yet.

Walk on?

Jono tells in the opening of the book about his younger brother Gareth's tragic death in a freak rowing accident on what normally was a calm lake.
Jono later realized the walk he did was a personal pilgrimage to try and come to terms with Gareth's death and the book explains many of Jono's thoughts along the way,
I remember thinking how freaky that accident that took Jono's brother's life was and how it wasn't something you would read about in news stories as common a car crash death, for instance.
And then a few days later I read this story in the news -
Two Monash University students die in New Zealand kayaking accident, police say
New Zealand Police said US national Daniel Hollnsteiner, 21 and James Murphy, 20, from London, died after they were thrown into the icy water when a strong wind change whipped up waves.
Local police commander David Gaskin said the two men were part of a group of 11 people from the university who got into trouble on the lake.

Lake Tekapo, in New Zealand, where two students died when they were thrown from their kayaks into icy water.

That news story above was a very eerily similar incident to the way Jono lost his brother in a Canadian lake. 

A lot of recent books and movies that I have read, or watched over the past year, or two have carried the same theme of the pilgrimage from A to B in a quest to find something, or prove something on some unconscious, or spiritual level to that person, or person's being.

 The thing I have found out on most occasions after reading, or viewing these personal stories is that the journey doesn't really end for that person at point B, even though that was the imagined destination point of the trekker.

On an inner sense these authors are still walking that journey and will continue to walk that journey for the rest of their lives.

Life is a journey, not a destination.

Usually the walk never really ends for these people at point B, because point A was just the beginning of a life walk.

Walkers tend to keep walking far past the point B that they thought would signal the end of their journey.

Walking home … again …

The Way To Byron Bay Via Spain
It was probably Ailsa Piper who got me hooked on these walking/journey books when I happened to go to her talk at the 2012 Byron Bay Writers Festival.
Doppelgänger Bloggers?

Chapter 11 of
  Into the Heart of the Himalayas, Gratitude.

One theme that I have noticed running through most of these pilgrimage/trek stories is that of gratitude, or grace.
The Goodwill, Grace and Goodwill 
And the elephant in the room in most of these stories seems to be a supernatural feeling of connectedness, or even fate to some degree.

And while talking about elephants in the room, just about everywhere Jono went in Tibet and surrounds the locals kept offering him Chang.
I thought this must be one hell of a popular brand of beer throughout Asia, but it wasn't the Thai beer the locals were offering him, chang must be the word for beer in those parts, so I learned something a little extra while reading Jono's story.
Cheers, Jono. 

And still on the subject of elephants in the room, I still have this box of stuff to sort out from my recent move:-)

On a personal note, I had to have a chuckle when Jono wrote that the 19th November was one of the worst days on his trek because these kids followed him and threw rocks at him.
November 19th is my wedding anniversary and that date came up as a bad day in my last post oddly enough,
Saint Bob

Jono ends the November 19th entry by writing the "walking is my yoga", all I could think about that date was that walking down the isle was my folly;-)

Scene from Peter Jackson's King Kong

On a side note I decided to rent the Peter Jackson movie King Kong on DVD the night I opened my Father's Day bottle of 

Johnny Walker Red.
I don't think I have ever sat down and watched the whole movie before, as I could never really be bothered to watch yet another Kong movie, I only decided to rent it after watching Jake Kotze's  
420 Kong vimeo.

Scene from Peter Jackson's King Kong

And then I see these scenes in King Kong of Jack Black cracking open a lemonade case during the prohibition in the 30s on alcohol, only to find it full of Johnny Walker Red scotch. 

Scene from Peter Jackson's King Kong. Keep walking?

Keep Walking?

And on the subject of walking, Shannon Noll put on a gig right across the road from the Brisbane Lions club where the Thirsty Camel bottle shop is where I bought the Johnny Walker Red, and I could literally walk from where I lived (and did), have a few beers, enjoy the show and walk home again.

Great show (there will be a post on that show soon) and Shannon even sung the song he wrote about his father called -
Now I Run
"I'm just my fathers son
Taught me to walk, now I run
I run"

Seems to be a theme running right through this thread, doesn't there?
 Walk on!

Saint Bob

I've finally read the biography of Father Bob, written by Sue Williams, that I bought at the Byron Bay Writers Festival in 2014.

Father Bob (far left) Byron Bay Writers Festival in 2014

Unfortunately, I didn't get to meet Father Bob at the BBWF, even though I was in attendance at the book talk he gave on the day.
He just didn't turn up for the book signing afterwards for some reason, but at least I  got to talk to his sidekick John Safran once more, and at least got John to sign his book ... that I'm still yet to read.

 After reading his life story it was clear that Bob always punched way above his weight in life and while I'm not a Roman Catholic myself, I can see why people think he should be made a saint sometime down the track.

I would even hang a St. Bob medal from my rear-view mirror if the Church ever made him a saint, even if he was a bloody Collingwood supporter;-)

Not to mention a Melbourne Storm supporter, as well.
Your sins are forgiven for supporting these clubs Bob ... even though I find it really hard to forgive you for being a Collingwood fan.
Gees, what were you thinking when you got involved with that crowd, even Nathan Buckley got cast out of heaven (Brisbane Lions) and wound up there to suffer;-)

I noticed that Father Bob was made redundant the same year I was, 2012 -
Freedom At Last After 24+ Years
But unlike Bob, I hated my job and I've never regretted having to leave that place I worked in.

November 19th??

Another weird coincidence I noticed when reading the book about Father Bob was the tragic story of Bob's more, or less adopted son, Costas Vasiliou dying suddenly on November 19th, 2011, while Father Bob had a wedding to do on the day and how he found Costas just before he had to do the wedding.
Father Bob went on with the wedding, so as not to let the bride and family down on her wedding day, all the time knowing Costas lay dead on the Church grounds.
November 19th, 2011 was my 23rd wedding anniversary right to the day.

My wedding ring with the date of the
wedding day inscribed inside - 19/11/88

Being officially divorced in 2016, I'll always see November 19 as a tragic day from now on, too.
Love on the Rocks ... A Fool's Journey?
I thought it was amusing while reading the book that Father Bob said he knew nothing about being married, but he was married to the Church and the Church divorced him when they kicked him out after turning 75.
Believe me Father Bob, the feelings you felt when going through that would be nearly identical to being divorced in a real marriage, having to move out of the house you loved and having to start again, while feeling betrayed by the marriage partner you thought you could trust.

Page 237?!

Being from Brisbane I never really heard about Father Bob and his work until I saw him with John Safran on John's TV show 'John Safran vs God' (see the photo of page 237 above).

 The first time I ever met John Safran was the night I took my boys (who were fans of Safran's shows) to see him and Jon Ronson do a talk at the Brisbane Powerhouse (see picture below). 
The Men Who Stare at Goats and The Daughters Who Lift Cars Off Their Dads Sync

I first met John Safran in Brisbane 2005.
Nice of Jon Ronson to record it for me in his book.

I was so impressed by Father Bob's story that I ordered a DVD of the movie that I narrowly missed seeing a while back which I wrote about in this post in the link below- 
My Philomena Spooky Syncy Sunday

I know that in the end of the book you say that you never want to be made a saint Father Bob, but you deserve to be made one, I think.
You're a saint in my book anyway Saint Bob. 

I often toyed with converting to Roman Catholicism in my early 20s, but I could never stand the dogma of the Church, while I really loved the spiritual side of the ritual, so I ended up joining the  
Liberal Catholic Church, so I could receive the Eucharist without all of the dogma that goes with it.
After watching the RC Church go slowly backwards over the years and back towards the dark old days, I think I made the right choice all of those years ago by staying out of it.
If the Church had more priests like Father Bob I wouldn't think twice about converting.
Maybe one day the hierarchy of the Church will come to their senses and realize that they need more priests like Father Bob.

UPDATE: May 6th, 2023

Father Bob Maguire honoured at a state
funeral at Melbourne's St Patrick's Cathedral

I watched Father Bob's State Funeral live yesterday from my Brisbane/Logan home on a Vimeo link, which was kind of surreal ... and now it is up on You Tube (below) for those who missed it or want to watch it again.

I don't know why I kept thinking of those billboard glasses from 'The Great Gatsby' while I was watching Father Bob's service?-)

In (Saint) Bob We Trust