Words of Wisdom from Kurt Vonnegut about Creative Expression.
March 18, 2023
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Some thoughts in short form….then an essay written by ChatGPT
January 30, 2023Here’s some stuff I wrote ages ago when thinking about what poetry is >>
Art is the foot print of a soul step. No soul, no foot print – only shifting sands of glitter & flash light grains.
Art is only art when the drive to create is fueled by inner necessity
Poetics is the study of soul graphics. The journey of the scribble doesn’t stop at meaning.
Why must a reality measured in litres and metres be more real than one measured in sighs and tears?
Like a night club bouncer big words can select their own context of entry.
Experimenting with ChatGPT I asked it to write an essay using the above thoughts in short form. This is what it came up with. It also created the title
“Creativity: The Soul’s Footprint”
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Home Grown Songs from a 1980’s Lounge Room
September 12, 2022In the 1980’s, as a hobby, I’d write poems & then transform them into lyrics with music making songs. Most of the music was written by a friend, Henry, and there are some I wrote the music. I wasn’t a great guitarist, just knew a few chords & made do with them for my music to the lyrics. Apart from Henry there was also Dennis who played lead guitar and Willie, my brother, who also played guitar.
I scored a cheap Casio player and there are some jams we recorded with me playing the Casio. It was one of the first players that had programmed polyphonic auto accompaniment. “Playing” implies I knew what I was doing. I didn’t. I just pressed some keys in rhythm hoping it’d make some semblance of a tune. It provided the “metronome” drum beat & the programmed beats/notes. These acted as “guard rails” to the jam.
It was a great way to spend a Friday or Saturday night. We didn’t have any plans to perform, we just liked hanging together making music for ourselves. I’m so glad we took out the microphones to record them on cassette.
It all is SO long ago.
I’m uploading these recordings for posterity sake. No, I’m not putting them up on YouTube or SoundCloud because this blog is good enough for my purpose. My purpose? Why do I bother? Simple – for my kids & grand kids to have easy access to what I was up to, musically. It’s also a part of my Journey in this World Within Worlds.
I have already posted some of the songs’ lyrics so I thought, once I overcame my cringe factor, to complete the outing by posting some of the songs – complete with my singing & mates’ music. Writing a poem is very different to writing a song lyric. Transforming a poem into a song lyric is an interesting exercise, especially if someone else writes the music.
So, step back in time – come into my lounge room & get a taste of some home grown songs from Sydney in 1980’s.
By the way – if there’s anybody interested in updating these songs to 2022 let me know by messaging me at dodona777@yahoo.com.au
I think some of these may work with right mixing even 40 years later.
Stavros – singing, Dennis – Lead Guitar , Henry – Rhythm Guitar
Stavros – singing, Dennis – Lead Guitar, Henry – Rhythm Guitar
Dennis – Lead Guitar, Stavros – Singing & Rhythm Guitar
Dennis – Lead Guitar, Stavros – Singing & Rhythm Guitar
Stavros – singing, Henry – Guitar
Dennis – Lead Guitar, Stavros – Singing & Rhythm Guitar
Stavros – singing, Dennis – Lead Guitar, Henry – Rhythm Guitar
Dennis – Lead Guitar, Stavros – Singing & Rhythm Guitar
Dennis – Lead Guitar, Stavros – Singing & Rhythm Guitar
Henry Singing & Guitar
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My Table of Memories
September 17, 2019I finished putting legs on my table all those years ago. My table’s not much, just a plank of wood on top of some logs. This is the table that will hopefully be a fertile field for star matter. The table top comes resonant with memories. These memories are living harmonic entities, I feel as though I owe these memories something, like it’s some unfinished business.
I love that it is made from recycled goods. The top was given to me, the legs I found at a demolition yard and the dowling, an old broom handle. Things aren’t square, for all intents and purposes if the logs weren’t so big the whole thing would probably fall. Not a solid foundation in structure but will remain stable because of its substance. Kinda like me, I suppose. There’s something to be said about being recycled. Hands that carried the table top to my home left not only fingerprints, but also something of themselves. I’m getting kinda teary eyed about Tin Sheds, Sydney Uni where I taught Tai Chi to the Earthworks Poster Collective & Architecture Students who built the Alternative House. I can assure you that in the 1970’s the Tin Sheds were REALLY tin sheds. Not like it is now, a Gallery, as seen in the link.
That’s me up front on the grounds of The Tin Sheds Gallery, Sydney University
It was in the 1970’s and the Architecture Faculty had a clean up & was getting rid of some tables. My students knew I needed a desk and offered to carry a table top reject to my home since we didn’t have a car and I only lived less than a kilometre away. I find it hard to believe our past actions are burnt & all we have are smoke memories curling from chimney tops of NOW. Those people and their hands are here now, just as bones of my body are buried in the future. Our life time is an Ourobouros where the moment of our first quickening in a womb is also the moment of our death. P D Ouspensky’s idea of Eternal Recurrence I find somehow comforting.
I made the legs soon after I received the table top when I was a student of literature and psychology. When the table was complete I found some long lost series of icons given to all Greek Orthodox kids at Sunday School. They were small paper prints, the size of football cards. How they survived all those years I don’t know. When I was going through the whole Dharma Bum thing, I carried these five icons depicting the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as page markers of the I Ching – the great Book of Changes in my backpack. This combination, with my filakto, pinned to the inside of my shirt, protected me as I hitched hiked across Australia. It’s only fair to the scheme of things that these companions would also assist me through my intellectual hiking across a Humanities degree.
These icons were with me throughout my studies and were glued to the table top in a cross like pattern, with the Resurrection in the centre. The Crucifixion was to the South, the Transfiguration to the North, the Birth to the East and the Last Supper to the West. These were markers of another compass, another North. I varnished the whole top so the icons became part of the table. I’d see the Cross of Events amidst the disorder of my table. In many ways this addition to my table claimed ownership of the top. Sometimes, between a cup of coffee and some notes, or a book, I’d catch a glimpse of the Resurrection. The Byzantine black of the tomb seemed darker still with His feet and legs standing up and in contrast to a coffee cup and book, to that moment his image seemed to hover above the flat table top. This image, beside my notes, reminded me, if only for a fraction of a breath that death has been beaten. So, my table had a border beyond death within the wood it was made of.
The textbooks of academia rested & opened on these icons on my table top. When I was uncertain about which direction to take I sometimes cast a hexagram so that the Book of Changes would speak to me. Just like I did when I hitch hiked across Australia. The difference this time was that the coins fell on the icons instead of road dirt.
One person stands out in my memory and now winks at me from the table in my mind, for the table no longer exists. His name is Colin Little – check this article in Eye Magazine > Political clout: Australian posters http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/political-clout-australian-posters.
Colin asked me to teach him and his friends Tai Chi. He knew I was no master but when you’re friends, who needs to be a master? We were all beginners with beginners’ minds – I was just a little longer a Tai Chi beginner. He died in 1982. Here’s some work he did at the Tin Sheds as part of the Earthworks Poster Collective:
Earthworks Poster Collective by Colin Little, “Bo Diddley SRC“
Earthworks Poster Collective by Colin Little “Lenin Conference on Radical Economics“
Here’s a classic Earthworks Collective Poster by Chips Mackinolty – Land Rights Dance
Earthworks Collective Poster by Chips Mackinolty – Land Rights Dance
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The Devil’s Secret
October 16, 2009
The following quote comes from ” The Conference of the Birds” a beautiful Sufi Persian Book of Poems written in 1177 by Farid ud – Din Attar.
During the 1970’s it was adapted into a play by Peter Brook and Jean-Claude Carriere which Brook took on a tour through parts of wild Africa and performed in the streets and later to Western audiences in New York, Paris and in Sydney. I was lucky at the time because I was living in Sydney and saw it. The play communicated at a very subliminal level in that it didn’t really matter if you understood rationally what the actors were saying because the “meaning” was transmitted almost viscerally through the movements and the sounds that emanated from the stage.
The devil’s secret:
God said to Moses once: “Go out and find
The secret truth that haunts the devil’s mind,”
When Moses met the devil that same day
He asked for his advice and heard him say:
“Remember this, repeat it constantly,
Don’t speak of ‘me’, or you will be like me.”
If life still holds you by a single hair,
The end of all your toil will be despair;
No matter how you prosper, there will rise
Before your face a hundred smirking “I”s.
The Conference of the Birds
“Manteq at-Ṭayr” (“Conference of the Birds”)
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History is an Angel
April 21, 2009
History is an angel
Being blown backwards
Into the future
History is a pile of debris
And the angel wants to go back
And fix things
To repair things that have been broken
But there’s a storm blowing from paradise
And the storm keeps blowing the angel backwards
Into the future
And this storm
This storm is called Progress
Laurie Anderson, ‘The Dream Before’
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A Palestinian Belt with Badges
March 29, 2009
Below is a photo of a hand woven belt given to me as a gift when I was in Palestine in 2000. I have attached a number of badges to it. The Hope for Refugees badges were made from images downloaded from my first website for Woomera. The others came from all sorts of experiences.
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Cultural Stomp 1997 – 2007
February 21, 2009Below are a series of articles, photos and graphics of the Cultural Stomp. Rather than me writing about it here, just read the articles – one from the NSW Government Hansard, one I wrote for “Education Australia” and there is the editorial I wrote for the 2007 Tenth Anniversary of the Cultural Stomp. I was one of the original founders of this amazing Festival, being part of the organising group we called Cultures in Action ( CIA ).
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Cultural Stomp, 1998
Newcastle Celebrates it’s Cultural Diversity
Around Easter, 1997, there was a feeling in the City of Newcastle’s air that was brittle, if not fragile. BHP had just announced the closure of its steelworks and 2500 workers were to be on the scrap heap by 2000. Many of these workers had literacy and numeracy learning needs. The “downsizing” of BHP also would have a painful effect on ethnic communities of the Hunter, with about 600 non English speaking background workers needing extra English language skills.
The Hunter region was in a state of shock, because those 2500 workers retrenched would by the multiplier effect mean another 12 to 20,000 jobs would also disappear in the region. Newcastle was hurting, and hurting bad. So when, only a couple of weeks later, the announcement that the One Nation Party was to be launched for the first time in NSW on 30 May, 1997 at the Civic Theatre in Newcastle it was important that an alternate forum for people with opposing views should be organised.
Drawn by a common need and a common objective, a diverse group of citizens met at Wollatuka, Newcastle University to see what would be done. A young Aboriginal student stood up and said to the circle of people who had gathered, “Hi, my name is Belinda and I’m glad that so many people have shown up today. I want to do something about Pauline coming to visit us, but I don’t want to yell at her… I want to do something positive… I want to celebrate what we already have in our city. Who also wants to?” Instantly people called out “Yes” in their diverse ways. We divided up into work groups and we all knew that whatever we come up with we only had three weeks to organise it. We decided that on the same night that Pauline Hanson was speaking we would hold a celebration of our cultural diversity in Civic Park which is only about 200 metres from Civic Theatre. Some us met later at the Pod, and we called the event, The Cultural Stomp and our group, Cultures In Action (CIA).
On the night, over five thousand people turned up at Civic Park to let One Nation know that we have something to celebrate in our local community ; we were celebrating our diversity and the unity of that diversity as Australians. With dancing, singing, music, poetry, fire twirling and a Ceremony scheduled at the same time Pauline Hanson was due to speak, The Cultural Stomp made its debut. Outside the Theatre, where 1000 people paid $10 to listen to Hanson, there was a large crowd of people letting her know that her views weren’t necessarily felt by a large percentage of people living in Newcastle. In many ways, the Cultural Stomp was a reconciling force to the active and the resistant forces of One Nation and confronting each other outside the theatre. The Lord Mayor was quoted in the Newcastle Herald as saying, “If it wasn’t for The Cultural Stomp last night, there may well have been violence.”
This year, Cultures in Action (CIA) met once again to see if we would organise another Cultural Stomp. In a fundamental way the purpose was the same as last year; to hold a peaceful celebration of Newcastle’s cultural diversity and unity in Civic Park. The only difference this year was that we didn’t have the visual presence of the One Nation Party to contend with, which meant that we probably wouldn’t get the media exposure and build up of hype. The process of organising the event, the networking and the seeking of support and sponsorship revealed that Newcastle loved the concept of The Cultural Stomp. Its sponsors and supporters included Newcastle City Council; The Pod; Newcastle City Centre; Newcastle Trades Hall Council; Ethnic Affairs Commission; Awabakal Co-Op; New South Wales Ministry of the Arts; Hunter Area Health; Newcastle University Student Association; Purrimaibahn Unit; Migrant Resource Centre; Multicultural Neighbourhood Centre; Ethnic Communities Council; Hunter Institute of Technology Association; Newcastle University Union; Newcastle Workers Club;Wollatuka; Fast Events; Ron Hartree Art School; Alan Morris M.P; Bryce Gaudry M.P., Brian Birkefeld and many more.
Three nights before the event, at the end of the Sorry Service for the Stolen Generation at the Anglican Cathedral, the bishop said, “Don’t forget to come to The Cultural Stomp at Civic Park on Saturday.” The night before the event I had returned home late after working with fellow CIA members making lanterns and the bamboo and paper Globe of Reconciliation for the Cultural Stomp Ceremony. As I walked through the door my kids called out, “Dad, come quickly, The Cultural Stomp is on TV!” I rushed over and saw our logo of the nine petalled flower and heard our event announced in the middle of a football game between the Newcastle Knights and Western Suburbs Roosters. From an utterance in the Cathedral to the middle of a televised footy game, The Cultural Stomp was announced.
On the day we had crowds coming and going in the thousands. This year’s Stomp included Hunter Institute of Technology’s Purrimaibahn Unit displaying art and writings from TAFE students and kids at infant, primary and high schools of our region. It was a wonderful gesture of reconciliation where Aboriginal people shared their work, their hopes and dreams of living in harmony with other members of our culturally diverse community. Throughout the day, performances and speeches from the local multicultural community kept people entertained and informed. We had started the day at 2 o’clock in the afternoon with an Aboriginal Smoking Ceremony; at dusk we were united in the Globe of Reconciliation Fire Ceremony; and the night ‘finished’ at 10 o’clock with dancing irt the park.
Two weeks later, after the news of the One Nation win in Queensland, I was talking to a few students and teachers in the sun outside the classrooms. Someone raised the spectre of Hansonism and an Aboriginal student said, “Newcastle is OK, we had the Stomp and people here are OK.” Someone else said, “You know, I walked through Civic Park the other day, and it was different. I could still remember all the people and the kids painting the didgeridoos, the South Pacific Islanders dancing and just the whole thing. The Cultural Stomp has changed the way I see Civic Park.”
Cultures in Action is planning another Cultural Stomp for next year and it promises to be bigger and better; regardless of the political landscape.
Stavros
Education Australia, 1998
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Legislative Assembly Hansard (Extract)
Hansard extract, NSW Legislative Assembly, 7 June 2000 (article 36).
Speakers: Gaudry Mr Bryce; Markham Mr Colin | Speech Type: PRIV; Private Members Statements
CULTURAL STOMP
Page: 6794
Mr GAUDRY (Newcastle—Parliamentary Secretary) [5.52 p.m.]: Last Saturday, together with several thousands of Newcastle and Hunter people, I participated in the fourth Cultural Stomp in Newcastle, an event the aim of which is to bring people together. The Cultures In Action Committee organised the event to nurture the spirit of the culturally diverse Australian society, to give people the opportunity to work together and celebrate reconciliation while simultaneously respecting differences and commonality in our cultures. That cultural event occurred approximately a week after one of the greatest, if not the greatest, demonstrations of solidarity that one could ever wish to see, when hundreds of thousands of people came together in Sydney to celebrate Corroboree 2000 and reconciliation with Australia’s indigenous people.
The Cultural Stomp was first staged in Newcastle in May 1997 as a strong but peaceful statement opposing the strong and divisive politics that were being espoused at that time by One Nation. The whole approach was to bring people together into social action and in peace to demonstrate all the values that can be combined in a community rather than focusing on the divisiveness that was occurring at that time. Since that time, the Cultures in Action Committee in Newcastle has built a really successful cultural event which takes place in Civic Park, opposite Newcastle City Hall. The events bring together a whole range of young people and community groups such as the ethnic communities in Newcastle, the arts communities and visitors from areas outside Newcastle.
The Cultural Stomp day of celebration includes demonstrations of a whole range of dancing and singing. Very importantly, this year’s celebration involved people who have disabilities. The Life Without Barriers group. Life Without Barriers, a special group in Newcastle that works towards providing access and opportunities to people who have disabilities, participated in performances in Civic Park. One of the really significant events was the participation of Mrs Benita Mabo. Tuesday 6 June was the anniversary of the handing down of the Mabo decision, a decision that has brought about tremendous change. It ended the theory of terra nullius and began the continuing struggle by many indigenous people for reconciliation and recognition of their rights as the original occupants of this land. Mrs Mabo spoke of the personal struggle of Eddie Mabo and the struggles of her own people, the South Pacific Islanders, who came to Australia during the labour trade, which featured blackbirding. She referred to the struggle that continues for her people to obtain recognition in this country.
One of the outstanding features of the day was a performance by the Mulloobinba Newcastle high school dance group, which previewed the dances that they will be performing at the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympic Games. I congratulate Mrs Barbara Greentree and the dance group on the selection they will perform at the opening Olympic ceremony and also on the performance that was given on the Cultural Stomp day. One of the organisers of the Cultural Stomp, Mrs Lorraine Norton, has adopted a comment from David Suzuki’s book The Sacred Balance, which states that local communities are actually the mainstay during change. It states further:
“The social unit that will have the greatest stability and resilience into the future is the local community which provides individuals and families with a sense of place and belonging, fellowship and support, purpose and meaning.”
That is the whole idea underlying the celebration that takes place annually in Newcastle. Its aim is to bring people together, to celebrate their diversity and the linking of all cultures in Australian society.
Mr MARKHAM (Wollongong—Parliamentary Secretary) [5.57 p.m.]: The honourable member for Newcastle is to be congratulated for bringing to the attention of this House the Cultural Stomp, which takes place annually in Newcastle. The event is a real demonstration of reconciliation in action—and as I have often said, actions speak louder than words. I congratulate all those involved with the Cultural Stomp. Similar events, as often as possible, should be held in all parts of Australia.
Cultural Stomp 1998
Scanned Editorial from the 10th Anniversary Cultural Stomp Programme, 2007.
Horoscope: Cultural Stomp 4 PM 30 May, 1997, Civic Park, Newcastle, Australia.
2007 Cultural Stomp Poster – note the 9 petalled flower from the first Cultural Stomp in 1997.
First Press Release for Cultural Stomp, 1997
Letter to people, May 1997.
Cultural Stomp, Newcastle
Flyer for Community Meeting to Organise Cultural Stomp in 1998.
From 2007 Cultural Stomp Programme
From 2007 Cultural Stomp Programme
From 2007 Cultural Stomp Programme
Cultural Stomp, Newcastle
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Portrait
February 20, 2009
Stavros , 1974 – portrait by John Bell
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Flotillas of Hope – another aspect
December 30, 2008
The Flotillas of Hope was a voyage by two yachts carried out in 2004 by protesters critical of the Australian government’s asylum policy. The boats sailed to Nauru, a Pacific island nation which was host to Australia’s offshore immigrant detention center until the new Labor government came to power in 2007. They intended to deliver goods to those interned (most detainees are families who fled conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq), but not surprisingly were not allowed to land by the Nauruan government. Under an agreement put into effect earlier that year, Australia had taken responsibility for the island’s finances and civilian police force. John Howard, the Australian Prime Minister at the time, forced the Nauru government to take armed Australian Police Force to “protect” the island nation from the Flotillas of Hope flying Teddy Bear flags. The Flotillas of Hope project had two intentions 1) to give the refugees caged on the Island of Shame – Nauru, hope – that they have not been forgotten by people, that the Pacific Solution – out of sight, out of mind, did not work and 2) to bring the world media spotlight on Nauru on World Refugee Day, 20 June 2004. This the project achieved and it saw the granting of asylum to over half the refugees on Nauru and the release of Aladdin Sisalem who was in solitary confinement on Manus Island, New Guinea while we were sailing to Nauru.
Hand made flags with messages of hope and love made by the people of Australia flew on Eureka and One Off.
The way the Flotillas grew from an idea, a dream that manifested at first as an email Call to Action using the internet as a nervous system which then as an organsim, gathered into the Flotillas intention – satellite mobile phones, life rafts, high frequency radios, laptops, generators, sun power inverters, flags painted by community hands, dolls and teddy bears in handmade clothes, knitted sweaters, a large canvas sail painted by local Sydney artists along with other paintings expressly made and auctioned to raise money for the safe passage of the Flotillas of Hope, all of this and more occurred during the event.. From the finer embedded world of qualities, the realm of hope, love, justice, freedom – the realm of the spirits, the realm of creation, the Flotillas sparked into the internet. It was Art – in – Action using the world wide web to manifest. Hope was generated in not only the refugees caged on Nauru, but also in all people of good will who felt despondent that nothing will change the government’s heartless policy.
Trade Union Choir singing at the launch of the Flotillas of Hope in Sydney, 15 May, 2004.
Along the way, to the launch of the Flotillas, musicians performed live gigs to raise money for the project. There was a theme song written, performed and recorded along with poems about the Action. Check out Ernesto Presente’s poem on Poetry for Change website here. The lyrics of the Flotillas of Hope Theme Song is below. You can download the song here. You can also check out Joanna Leigh’s myspace profile here.
University students made videos. At the send – offs from Sydney, Newcastle, Coffs Harbour, Byron Bay and Brisbane, the Flotillas of Hope gathered the communities wishes and intentions to bring Hope to the refugees in the concentration camp of Nauru. The Flotillas did this by accepting hand made toys, hand made clothes for the dolls and teddy bears, the drawings and paintings of love and hope by Australian children, hand made flags with hand written words of love and hope from the people of Australia and overseas who sent gifts by post. Communities made beautiful flags – one with a Mandala made under the direction of a Buddhist priest, another of a Teddy Bear made by people who cared.
Poster promoting the departure of the flotillas from Brisbane.
On route to Nauru, the Flotillas docked at Santa Cruz Island, a far flung island of the Solomon Islands. The local indigenous people were so touched by our intention and by how far we had sailed and were sailing that they carved a beautiful wooden oar and gave it us to symbolize that they were rowing all the way with us to Nauru. They gave us the gift on the day we departed Santa Cruz with a send off that included singing, dancing, eating and words of power and encouragement.
The Flotillas carried the cargo of hope through the 12 mile No Go Zone and got to within 500 metres of Nauru coast until they were chased out by 6 Nauruan boats. The boats, Eureka and One Off became living talismans of peaceful and compassionate energies from Australians.
On the way to Nauru, refugees were freed and the websites designed to be the communications hub of the project informed the world about what was happening. There were live interviews with ABC, SBS, BBC, NZBC, Houston Radio, USA along with commercial radio and TV in Australia. A filmmaker, Angela van Boxtel made a Lucid Launch Flotillas of Hope website where artists contributed their art on the website. The Flotillas of Hope was an idea that touched people from across the world and it was an effective art action in all its levels of manifestation.
Santa Cruz, Solomon Islands locals dancing at the departure ceremony.
Santa Cruz, Solomon Island dancers at the departure ceremony wishing us luck and grace.
Various artists painted sections of this canvas sail which was auctioned off along with other original works of art in Gallery 179, Darlinghurst to raise funds for the Flotillas of Hope..
It was also an expression of the newly coined word “Noopolitics” which encompasses Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s concept of the noosphere of knowledge / information (Teilhard is often called the patron saint of the Internet) because we not only made the news, we also reported the news which was transmitted across the world wide web and TV, radio and text media through our logs and the live satellite phone hookups with global media. The narrative of the journey was transmitted live by the logs of the crew.
The crew received messages of hope – poems and passionate prose from people all over the world who sent text messages from the web directly to our sat – phone in the middle of the deep blue sea. People following the journey on the web were informed as to the exact location of the boats by maps updated by satellite phone to the communications cluster. The project has been archived at the Australian Maritime Museum.
Artists that contributed the sections on the Sail are in order from the top to the bottom, left to right: Dale Dean, Euan Macleod, Mareia Brozky, Angelica Greening, Ingrid Skirkia, John Bell, Lorna Grear, Neil Mallard, Euan Macleod (one more section), Leo Robbia and Martin Sharp.
stavros
Teddy Bear flag made by Newcastle community and flown as we entered the barred 12 mile zone.
Some of the Cargo of Hope – toys and gifts from the Australian people for the children and their parents imprisoned on Nauru.
Prayers in Newcastle launch with members of the crew.
Flotillas – the precedents.
Speaking in 1984, on the occasion to launch of an initiative to send a ship to escort people fleeing in boats in South East Asia, Michel Foucault said:
“We are just private individuals here, with no other grounds for speaking, or for speaking together, than a certain shared difficulty in enduring what is taking place. … there’s not much we can do about the reasons why some men and women would rather leave their country than live in it. The fact is beyond our reach.
Who appointed us, then? No one. And that is precisely what constitutes our right. […]
After all, we are all members of the community of the governed, and thereby obliged to show mutual solidarity.
We must reject the division of labour so often proposed to us: individuals can get indignant and talk; governments will reflect and act. […] Experience shows that one can and must refuse the theatrical role of pure and simple indignation that is proposed to us.”
Letter written to supporters about 6 weeks before departure. At the time of the launch, the Project had 2 satellite phones, raised over $20,000 to cover all costs and other technology – all donated by the people of Australia.
Lyrics to the song “Who Is That Refugee?’
A Fluxus Manifesto. Some have said that the Flotillas of Hope was a Fluxus Action.
The Flotilla of HOPE
A Journey of Compassion to Nauru
5 Comments | art, asylum seekers, community art, flotillas of hope, fluxus, hope caravan, human rights, personal, philosophy, photography, politics, refugees, situationists, travel | Tagged: Christmas, eureka, eureka stockade, flotillas of hope, fluxus, human rights. refugees, Jesus Christ, john howard, nauru, one off, pacific solution, Pat Drummond, situationists, solomon islands, southern cross | Permalink
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Thank you for visiting Journeys and Star Gazing. Here there's stories of my various journeys, some inner but mostly outer; photos, song lyrics, poems, astrological readings and interpretations, I Ching speculations, quotes from people I admire and some cool graphics. There are reflections and archival material on various human rights campaigns I have been involved in over the years. With these, some have a "Star Gazing" interpretive filter. 
Journeys and Star Gazing 