Let me tell you a story about the table I cobbled together back in the day. It ain’t no fancy affair, just a slab of wood perched on some logs, a DIY masterpiece. This table, my friends, is where the cosmic dance of star matter goes down—or so I hope. Memories cling to it like a vibrant aura, living entities harmonizing in a psychedelic symphony. It feels like I have some unfinished business with these memories, like a cosmic debt hanging over my head.
What I love about this table is that it’s a mishmash of recycled goods, a Frankenstein creation of sorts. The top, a gift; the legs, scavenged from a demolition yard; and the dowling, an old broom handle. Nothing’s square, and if those logs weren’t giants, the whole table would probably collapse. It’s structurally unsound but remains steady ’cause of what it’s made of—kinda like yours truly, I reckon. There’s a certain charm in being recycled, you know?
The hands that carried this table top to my home left more than just fingerprints—they left a piece of themselves. Tin Sheds, Sydney Uni, where I taught the Earthworks Poster Collective & Architecture Students who built and designed the Alternative House in the fine art of Tai Chi—it’s all etched in my soul. Back in the 1970s, the Tin Sheds were real tin sheds, none of that fancy gallery facade it’s become. Take a peek for yourself, it’s in the link.
That’s me up front on the grounds of The Tin Sheds Gallery, Sydney University
Now, picture this: the 1970s, Architecture Faculty cleaning house, tossing out tables. My students, clued in to my desperate need for a desk, volunteered to haul a reject tabletop to my place. We didn’t own a car, and my home was a stone’s throw away. Can you believe that our past exploits are just wisps of smoke, fading memories rising from chimney tops of NOW? Those friends and their hands, like the bones of my body—here now, that will be buried in the future. Life’s an Ourobouros, where the first kick in the womb and the final exhale at death share the same moment. P D Ouspensky’s idea of Eternal Recurrence , now that’s an idea I find strangely comforting.
The legs for this table were born soon after the tabletop landed in my possession, back when I was diving into literature and psychology doing an Arts degree. The legs were my ticket to this recycled universe I was creating. But that’s not the end of the saga, my friends. After completing the table, I unearthed a forgotten set of icons from my Greek Orthodox Sunday School days. Football-card-sized prints, survivors of the ages, depicting the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
In the throes of my Dharma Bum thing, hitchhiking across Australia, these icons were my talismans, nestled amidst the pages of the I Ching — the Book of Changes—in my backpack.
Paired with my filakto – my cross talisman, pinned inside my shirt, they shielded me during my hitchhiking journey across Australia. It seems fitting they tagged along on my intellectual odyssey and trek through a Humanities degree.
Glued to the table in a cross-like constellation, Resurrection at the center, Crucifixion to the South, Transfiguration to the North, Birth to the East, and Last Supper to the West. It was my compass, my North Star. I varnished the whole thing, making the icons one with the wood. The Cross of Events amidst the chaos of my table—a border beyond death etched into the very grain.
Academic textbooks rested and unfurled on these icon-clad surfaces. When uncertain about life’s crazy directions, I’d throw a hexagram, letting the Book of Changes whisper its cosmic wisdom. This time when uncertain about intellectual directions the coins danced on these icons instead of road dust.
Now, let me tell you about a friend named Colin Little, a memory that winks at me from the ghost of my table. Check out this article in Eye Magazine > Political clout: Australian posters http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/political-clout-australian-posters.
The table’s long gone, but the memory lingers. Colin, asked me to teach him and his crew the ways of Tai Chi. Colin knew I was no grandmaster but when you’re friends and when you’re all beginners with minds wide open, who needs to be a master? We were Tai Chi novices, finding Zen in the chaos. Colin left the planet in 1982, but his spirit still kicks it in the tales of the Tin Sheds and the Earthworks Poster Collective.
So here’s to the table that birthed cosmic symphonies, housed cosmic deities, and echoed the cosmic journey of a ragtag gang of seekers. It’s gone now, a mere whisper in the winds of time, but the stories, wow, the stories live on.
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
Posted by stavr0s 
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 