Eternity Will Have Just Begun?

42 thousand years?

I finished reading Tom Keneally's new book 'Two Old Men Dying' around Valentine's Day, which is also the anniversary of the death of the man credited with discovering Australia, Captain James Cook.
I didn't plan on finishing the book on that day, it just happened synchronistically.
In fact, I had forgotten about Cook dying on Valentine's Day until a few days after VD.
I only was reading Tom's book because I had read Stan Grant's book 'Talking to My Country' around Australia Day.
Although reading Stan's book around Australia Day was no accident.

Stan Grant and Thomas Keneally
 at the BWF in 2016

Australia Day is held on January 26th every year because that's the day Captain Cook discovered Australia, so we are told.
And as much as I love Australia and love celebrating Australia Day, I agree that the date has to be changed, so all Aussies can celebrate the day.

I've had the flag on my arm for over 35 years

Six Degrees of Brendan Cowell and Thomas Keneally?

Tom Keneally in the latest 'Underline' magazine

Also in the latest 'Underline' magazine. Valentine's Day?

I watched the footy the day after Valentine's Day and was stunned that calls are being made now to change the national anthem by some indigenous players.
Indigenous All Stars captain Cody Walker and Mal Meninga call for national anthem to be changed

I don't know what you would replace it with, to be honest.

I think it's the line "for we are young and free" that is causing the stink, so why not just re-write that line to something all us Aussies can agree on ... something like -

Thomas Keneally on The Garret podcast

That podcast in the link above is worth a listen if you are interested in hearing Tom's reason for writing what he has throughout his lifetime.

His latest book I found a bit of a slog, but it had some good ideas worth pondering in a zen sense.

Like pondering eternity.

My argument when it comes to the eternity in front of you is what about the eternity you just sprung from?
Doesn't eternity go both ways?
When did eternity start and when in eternity's timeline did you get to where you are now?

That echidna picture was out of the same newspaper edition I saw the Australia Day pictures up above in this post.

 The echidna picture was in here

So, while I did find the book a bit of a slog and the overall story a bit dull, I thought the ideas in the book were good and would make for a good movie if it was majorly overhauled in a re-write for the screen.
Tom's story won't please every reader, as at times it gets a bit woo-woo in a shamanic way (which I like in a way) and probably would have been better keeping the shamanic stuff a bit more ambiguous for readers who don't like magical storytelling when it comes to real life themes.
If you listen to Tom in that interview at 'The Garret' podcast he tells about his Irish Catholic grandmother's animistic gifts, so I guess Tom is a believer in shamanic magic, too. 
And while it is never stated in the novel, I got the idea that the modern man was a reincarnation of the 42,000-year-old Learned Man.
Well, that's the way I liked to imagine it anyway.

Fatima?

In the novel 'Two Old Men Dying' the modern Australian man is dying with cancer of the esophagus (Barrett's syndrome), which Tom refers to as "Jack the dancer".
I also saw the tragic death of a young TV chef who succumbed to "Jack the dancer" in the same paper the echidna was in.

I found it also amusing that in the novel tribal elders dislocated Learned Man's little toe, as the only bone in my body that was broken was my right little toe when I was a kid playing in a game of soccer with a tennis ball and my toe came to a painful halt when it found the foot of another.
It was always curled until after that day when it grew straight from that day on.
So that was the end of my budding foot modeling career;-)

I couldn't help but think of the latest 'Rune Soup' podcast (above) when I saw another TV chef in that same January 27th newspaper right next to a story about the fires that were just starting and heading Gordon's way, as was Nigella Lawson.

SaYINg "Yes" or "No" to the Serpent/SlaYINg the Dragon?

It is a small world, as Bruce Springsteen would tell you, as I stayed at the Wrest Point hotel when I spent four days in Hobart in 2016, but instead of fire I saw snow -
Room at the End of the World?

I started to get cold feet about being
up this high for some reason:-)

Tasmanian Souvenirs and Touchstones

The Small World Theory?

All the World is a Stage... Coach?