Menory Lane; Another Boomerang

After looking up yesterday's post, I went to the following year for this day in 2014... turned out I was in the middle of the WBL-LHI labelled series... "wide brown land-Lord Howe Island". I had scanned some of the pages from my journal of the visit there with my mother in 1992. I really enjoyed looking back over that again... I wonder if you will? I share with you here one of the images from the 16th, which was actually on post four of the series. 

There are a handful of readers here who watched those posts then... but there are lots of new readers, too. So I offer you the opportunity to see some grainy old scans of even grainier photographs in a handwritten journal of a little piece of paradise...

You can CLICK HERE to be transported back to Post One of the series, then work through each 'next post', or you can opt to go to THIS LABEL for all the posts and scroll to the bottom then work up in order, (because Blogger insists on LIFO presentation!)

Menoreturnagain; The Boomerang Posts; 9

Truly boomerang, as we revisit the original tale of YAMster's trip to the Great Down Under Parts...

The Pimple Oozes

Once outside the reaches of Perth and the green fringe of coastal Western OZ, we hit 'the wide brown land' with full force. Nothing in all the 'blurb' really prepares one for the openness which is the scrubland of the Nullarbor.  I am sure I mentioned that Australia is the world's largest desert island.  Desert is determined by the aridity of the land, not by the litres of sand it holds. 

Beyond its green fringes, OZ is D.R.Y.  Capital letters, full stops.  

Images taken from HERE

But that doesn't mean that it lacks life.  Nature is a determined creature.  So are the things she seeded here.  Once the green fringe drops away, at the point the Nullarbor begins, nothing grows beyond six feet in height - and even those are rare.  Majority plant life is 'saltbush' and 'blue bush', hardy shrubs with thick, fleshy leaves.  (In case it escaped your notice, the name is Latin - 'nulla arbor' = 'without trees' - - and you thought it was the local Koori name?!) Also, once the green fringe becomes a line on the rear horizon, the road becomes, long, long , long and straight as a die.  In 1984, it was also not wholly sealed.  A significant portion was simply graded dirt.  Ridged, like cattle grids.  So the best approach was high speed, thus minimising the rattle and hum.

Ansett Pioneer is no longer with us.  If memory serves, they were already a bit on the skids even then, particularly the airline wing.  We still had them though and opted for the all Aussie travel rather than the immigrant Greyhounds.  The tickets issued resembled those of airlines, but a bit smaller.  The office we had gone to in Perth to collect ours, issued them by hand when we arrived.  Handwritten.

A long way before the arrival of the e-ticket.

Anyway, along came our departure from Perth and onto the bus we climbed.  Main bags in the hold, of course, and there was cabin baggage - err sorry, on-coach items.  There were two blokes in uniform.  Tag-team pilots - err sorry drivers.  The off-duty driver also doubled as the hostess - err sorry, tour conductor.  Ahem.  He did come round with snacks and stuff and made sure we all had pillows and blankets…  just like a 'plane.

The driver had a talk-over microphone and informed us he was our pilot for the duration till we reached 'the roadhouse'.  Yes, I swear he said, pilot… well, maybe it was 'coach captain'.  The roadhouse is the café/petrol/camp stop two-thirds of the way to Adelaide. 

Our first pit-stop though, was Kalgoorlie, the famous gold-mining town, some 600kms East of Perth.  We had moved perhaps 200km and realised that the driver-pilots had surely been picked not just for their coach-handling prowess, but also their ability to provide on-board entertainment and sight-seeing advice.  Sight-seeing?  In a desert?  Well yes. 

"ROO!" would yell 'Captain Brad'.  Or "Camels ahead!"

That sort of thing.  Then there were the stories and jokes. 

Kalgoorlie was a welcome break from the Aussie onslaught.  The accent seemed to get thicker as we hit the Nullarbor itself and there were lots of blank moments as we tried to work out if we were A)having our legs harshly stretched or B)missing a subtle philosophical point.

This was the quintessentially OZ experience.  Two dozen strangers confined within a metal bullet careening across a table of brown and red, going cross-eyed from gazing at nothingness, being lampooned and serenaded in a tumble of 'Strine' (that's what the word 'Australian' sounds like when spoken by one).  Thus when we were let loose on Kalgoorlie, the mostly foreign passengers were able to cope with the local conditions. 

Kalgoorlie is not there for about 590kms of the trip.  Then it's all there.  No Urban lead-in (at least not thirty years ago).  Just desert.  Then town.  An hour to stretch legs and obtain hot food and drinks then piled back into the 'plane - err sorry, bus.  I do believe there are things to see and do in the place.  We just didn't see or do them.

Our focus was the razor-blade road.  Long, dry, dusty, … bumpy.  The bus we were on, it must be said, was showing signs of wear and tear from repeated journeys across this vast tract of corrugation.  Cap'n Brad was getting a wee bit 'flighty' and, I think, was working on the concept that moving the wheels sufficiently fast would in fact permit take off, thereby avoiding the rattle, if not so much the hum.  All was going speedily well until there was an enormous clanging sound.  

Screeching to a halt was not an option.  After all, we were airborne and had to land first.  That having been achieved, the braking required careful pumping in order to ensure we remained fully on the runway - err sorry, road.

Once that was accomplished, it was a small matter of reversing some ...ooooh… one and a half kilometres to see what had happened.  Cap'n Brad was certain, apparently, that this was necessary.  He chose not to turn round, as such, for this might result in steering loss - or so he informed us at that point.  It seems that things were getting a bit loose in the drive column…

Looser still was the exhaust muffler we found waiting for our return.  This was a special event, so we all offloaded to have a 'gander'. 

Hmm… about 2.5 metres of hot metal pipe, looking rather the worse for wear and decidedly forlorn.  Cap'n Brad, the other bloke (let's call him 'Len') and a couple of the fitter male passengers loaded the separated item onto the front of the bus, wedged between the enormous roo-bar and the machine itself.

Despite the fact it was useless, it is not the done thing to leave one's litter in the desert.

I have been in some hot spots in my life, but man that place was simmering.  For the first time, I experienced a mirage.  Only one other person said she saw it too.  It had something to do with our being under 5 feet in height.  Angle ratios and light vectors and stuff……

Back on the bus.  Cap'n Brad didn't want us to linger in case a dingo decided we were dinner.

Roos, camels, dingos - what else could we expect?  Oh wombats, snakes of 'varying varieties'  and certainly life-taking spiders.  Right.  And these are all native to Australia are they?  Yes.  Well, except for the camels of course.  They are feral pests.  Some bloke had the idea that surveying the inner deserts required the famous 'ship of…' and imported camel trains from various places.  One of those brilliant Victorian plunderer notions which turned nasty.  Seems the camels thrived in this particular desert - well they would with all that lush vegetation.  Not normally found in the Persian Sand-drifts, is that stuff.  Compared to thorn trees, the saltbush must have seemed like landing in a vat of chocolate.  In camel terms.

So once they were no longer required, they were released from their tethers, mated and motored and before you could say, Ned Kelly, the OZ interior had a new feral pest.

Menoreturnagain; The Boomerang Posts; 8

On Monday's post, many expressed a wish to revisit this whole tale - I did say you could follow the thread yourselves via the label ... but gave the wrong one (meno-head YAMster!!!) The correct designation is WBL-1stOzTrip.  However, it is quite fun to reminisce in these strange times, so I shall give them all again here... unedited, as is the precedent I set for myself. It is also fun, you see, to note how my writing and 'voice' have evolved on the bloggy...

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Less pimple, more beauty-spot. 

The Swan Valley is an enormous, flood-plain district around the Swan River.  Several things struck the Sceptical Tourist Fishy (STF) as we made the hour-long journey from Perth Airport to the property where we would stay the next three days.

First - the sky.  It was HIGH.  Apparently being on the hind end of the planet causes the atmosphere to expand.  Or it seemed that way!  This also meant that the air was amazingly clear, breathing-ways. 

photo from Google Images

Then there were the gum trees.  An immediate love affair sprung up between STF and the eucalypt family.

It wasn't long before kookaburras were spotted.  For Heaven's sake - you mean they are REAL???  Not just some story made up for kids in distant lands?  They actually laugh too!

The fourth factor on that arrival day was to discover these hosts had a Western Grey kangaroo in their back yard.  An enormous paddock of a yard, it should be said, but the kanga preferred to stay by the house.  It had a penchant for removing hairpins from the ladies' hair or attempting to unbuckle watches.  It also wanted its fair share of the salad from the barbecue.

Next day, Aitch and myself were pointed to the double-decker trains, and we rode into the pretty city of Perth.  Laid out in squares.  Wide, pristine streets.  Aitch and I are both history buffs and have an interest in architecture, so there was plenty to see and do.  To be very honest, I don't have the best recall of the details of that particular occasion, though I do think we visited the old gaol and similar places.  Certainly, the art gallery would have been included. I do know we got to the Ansett Buses office to confirm our tickets (booked from the UK) for departure to Adelaide in a couple of days.  All was dandy, but for the first time, we met the laconic Aussie temperament that seems always to be 'taking the mickey' and hit a surprising cultural wall as the language proved to be not entirely English after all!

One thing for sure, our Chinese hats proved worth the buying.  That OZ sun was fierce.  This brought a good bit of attention that we may have preferred not to have, but we were determined these were not merely ornamental oriental items.  There was a practicality to be demonstrated.

On our final evening in Perth, our hosts booked us in for a seafood platter meal at the King's Park Restaurant. 

Here was another factor in the transformation of the STF to OZ-devotee.  Never a great meat-eater, fish was quite acceptable - but until you have experienced the Australian seafood extravaganza, you just have never lived.  For the first time in my life, I ate lobster, mussels, oysters and crab.  In our family, this would have been seen as decadent beyond words, but in The Wide Brown Land, which has a fringe of green and bathes in blue, seafood is pretty much a staple.  Admittedly not all at once like this.  But it was an occasion and one never to be forgotten, as we sat in an historic building in an equally historic park, gazing down on the inland lake where the famous black swans gathered as the gigantic red orb of Sol sank into the Indian Ocean.

Next morning was a flurry of suitcases and Chinese sunhats as we boarded the 'Nullarbor Road Plane'.  By this time, the STF was utterly, totally in love with the 'pimple' and couldn't wait to see more.

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Menoreturnagain; The Boomerang Posts; 6

The re-posts from 2013. Several readers had been asking about my move to OZ from the UK... I decided to tell the tale of the Big Trip, from which all else blossomed. Not sure whether I will repeat any others here - but if your interest is piqued, you can hit the Menory Lane label!

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A pimple on the bottom.

Back in June, you had a glimpse of a trip that was to cause a major shift in my life.  It was quite some adventure, as a few of you noted.  I have decided it is time to begin at the beginning of that particular journey.

Settle in.  This could take a few posts.

There I was, getting on with life in Edinburgh, working in the agricultural research wing of the Edinburgh University - East of Scotland College of Agriculture [ESCA].  (This has some relevance that will become clear later).  My good friend, mate of school days and moments of mayhem, sister of spirit, 'Aitch' calls up one fine day and says, "I have to go to Hong Kong and I think I will drop by Australia after, are you coming too?"

Now I had many things in life that I could choose to do and at that point, most would have won the battle over which comes first… e.g. eat hot chips by the rocky shores of the Firth of Forth or visit Australia?

"Why do you want to go to the 'pimple'?" I asked back.  You see, in geography when we had researched that part of the Earth's anatomy, it was not a place that sat up and demanded to be known any further than the pages on the map.  I had parts of Europe, North America, India and such still to get to.  It must be said, though, that one of the places I DID want to see, was Hong Kong.  By offering that first, my attention was caught.  I just wasn't convinced of the need to go swanning around the nether regions of the planet.

"Mum has long-term friends in Perth and also over in NSW that I would like to visit," said Aitch.  This triggered a memory of having had a pen-friend in Adelaide.  Nothing he had ever written struck me as being an encouragement to travel in his direction.

Mostly what embedded itself in my mind had been mentions of multifarious poisonous critters in back yards and the advanced risk of swallowing flies.

Oh - and cricket.  That was a plus.  Mac3 having played for his school in cricket (not a big sport in Scotland, but he went to a posh place), I had become rather enamoured of that particular activity and one thing was clear, Aussies LOVED it.  So they had something going for them.  The other attraction was sheep.

Let me explain that briefly.  My mother's side of the family were shepherds.  Specifically, the elder and younger uncle were the 5th generation of a genuine shepherding tradition in the crofting and hill-farming style of Scotland.  I can recall even in my very early years, that grandad still ran the sheep to market by walking them over the hills.  Then trucking became the thing and that tradition disappeared with many others.

Thus, ending up in connection to farming, albeit in a city-based environment, my understanding of what farmers had to deal with grew significantly.  A project of particular interest was the wool industry and the Australian classifications on Marino wool were world standard.  I should make clear I was merely the number cruncher on a variety of different research projects, but naturally, one's own interest was stimulated.  

I digress; but this demonstrates how I had to dig deep to justify to myself why - even for Aitch - I should subject myself to such a trip.

Then the brochures arrived.  The planning began.  The Blurb designed to lure the Sceptical Tourist Fishy began to work its magic.  STF began to feel the call of adventure - travelling for endless miles over featureless lands, leaving one point of worth to arrive at another, with not a lot in between.  Adventure genes had been discovered early in life when mini-STF had scared the bejingles out of the parents by going rock-climbing on a summer trip to the Cairngorms.  At all of two and half years of age, I apparently showed great promise and I am certain that if any true mountaineer had been present they would have offered money to apprentice me.  Parents tend not to be of the cliff-face ascending mentality, however.

Apologies, that was another mental side trip, but it all goes to show how involved this major journey decision was for the STF.  However, a major factor in saying "yes" to Aitch, was that she was, after all, my best friend and her brother was getting married and required two witnesses of long acquaintance.

That would be us.  I won't linger on the details of it.  It was good enough reason though, to organise some fascinating sight-seeing - including the going up to high places and seeing the vista which is this amazing island.  Experiencing lychees for the first time began a life-long love.  However, by the time our handful of days had ended on that part of our six-week journey, I had seen enough to know that the Orient was perhaps not the place for me.  I appreciated being there but felt no great pull to return.

Our market shopping trips had ensured, though, that we both carried to OZ a Chinese-style sun hat - you know the type, made of palm leaves and bamboo - or maybe they were bamboo leaves too…  wide of brim and guaranteed to start a conversation.  Effective shade-shedders.  Not that great for packing.  

Remember these hats, Dear Reader.

So it was that we finally headed down-under.  First stop Perth, Western Australia.  At this point, STF still had a soupçon of reservation about going to what amounted to an enormous desert island.  However, as we were met by the R-family friends (still with their Suffolk accents), driving to their property in the Swan Valley region, something started to happen...

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Menogurgitating; a bloggy re-run ... Dress Up For Whitley!

Serendipity - was scheduling this 'dress-up' post anyway when darling Dory came up with <<<this idea...

So it was easy for me to join in today!!!

R U N   F R E E   W O N D E R F U L   W H I T L E Y!!!

Have been beavering away at pre-posting the bloggies before heading over to the BAR, and for the most part have been able to come up with original stuff. However, have decided that a couple of things can be re-posted from a couple years back, as the readership has altered/expanded and interest may be there...

... regarding my Sci-fi connection.  I first got fascinated simply because my father used to point out constellations to me and the idea of going into space was one of my earliest dreams.  

Then along came Star Trek.  I shall do a fuller blog later - this will be next Monday per re-post. For now, have a look at these. ...(YAMster is the short**** one in the veil...)

All costumes here were reproduced by hand of the wearers.

The Power House Museum in Sydney has some amazing big-feature temporary exhibitions. Not least of these was the touring Photon Productions Star Trek show which hit pretty much the whole world.  Being deeply involved with a fan-run society I was able to take advantage of a call for 'specialist' volunteer status during the three months.  What is more, based on the accuracy of my hand-made costume (at the back here), I was picked as one of the half-dozen Universal Ambassadors and got to attend the high-class, ticket-only, VIP opening banquet. Guest Star? Gates McFadden who played Dr Beverly Crusher on the Next Generation series.

Another favourite show was Babylon 5 and, as co-organiser of some top-level conventions this again meant some wonderful mix'n'mingle moments...

...with Mira Furlan...







...and Michael O'Hare...

...Joshua Cox...

...and the very scrumptious, absolutely delightful, Richard Biggs... can't believe it is 10 years (12 years, with this re-post) since he left for his own part of space. Lovely talent lost too early. This was taken in 1997...

What I didn't write in this or the next post on the original 'publication' was my full experience with the science and sci-fi communities in Sydney... that is a Mac History post that has been in the waiting - and may yet for a little while, but I'll get round to it, I promise!

Menory Lane + Menolyrical = Presience

The 'little black book' was begun as a teenager because... well... that's what teenagers do.The ones who are inclined to writing and introspection, certainly. As mentioned at the beginning of this little series, there are some clear themes which, it turns out, have threaded throughout life and were not mere passing fancies.

Spirit is one of those. Even at the time of teaching Sunday school, some very big questions were rumbling around inside. Something deep within urged the seeker to look beyond the mere words on the page. Words, language, in the end completely fails us when it comes to the realm of spirit.

Doesn't stop the words from coming! This poem was prompted from experiencing being questioned by an atheist and by an agnostic; at the time all one could do was trust the 'knowing' inside - in a hard world, though, that can leave one adrift.

That this poem heralds Advaitic understanding so many years before one had even heard of Vedanta or considered the possibility that there is a single, unifying, spiritual philosophy which would make itself known to this little 'aatmaavrajanam' - roaming soul. One that everybody can experience no matter how they choose to worship (or not), neither to which philosophical pole they attach their flag. The study of Advaita has permitted a re-reading of the gospels with a fresh and enlightened eye and it is joyous indeed.. to have the Upanishads on one end of the rainbow of YAM and Yeshu's teachings on the other is to have two pots of gold indeed.

Menory Lane - From a Small Root...

Mother - the encourager, the lover of environment, the questioner of logic, the fund of talent - gave me the flower press for my 18th birthday. Until then, it had been tissue paper and leather-bound books. Effective but cumbersome. I went through a phase of creating pictures from the pressings, in the way Victorians once used butterfly wings. Was it any less cruel to pluck a flower from its rooting-ground and squidge the life-juice from it? Was not the ripping of petal from stamen an act of destruction?

Unquestionably, yes. Therefore, when having the barbs of 'vegetarians kill too' thrown about, it can seem like 'case closed' by those with the smug looks on their faces. However it is necessary to balance the argument against the path of least harm.

Quite simply, all living things must survive. Within the bounds of survival, there are categories of 'life'. The category 'stone life' - minerals and liquids - all contain energetic properties which sustain life, but do not of themselves require sustenance. The category 'plant life' - all vegetation from the simplest fungus through to the mightiest trees - take sustenance from the minerals and liquids, they have minimal responses to light and to the climate, but have no purpose other than to form the environment for and provide sustenance to higher-functioning life forms. The category 'animal life' - all creatures from the amoeba of the sludge up to and including the human - have many and varied responses to their environment. They require the minerals, the water and the plants for sustenance.

Much of animal life gains sustenance only from plant life. However, as diverse species emerged, eaters of flesh arose. What started that? Competition for some juicy leaf resulting in blood shed - then development of a taste for it? Then specialisation and emergence of carnivores. What a strange creature is Man, though. Above all other critters, the human understands the place of food beyond mere survival; has developed such an adapted gut that multiple foods and endless tastes are required to satisfy the tongue. Whole cultures are based upon their food, its source, its presentation, how it is eaten.

The human animal has the tool called 'choice'. Other animals may have it to some limited degree - those who specialise in one fruit or another tend towards extinction when that food source becomes contaminated or is also erased. The human makes choices.

To maintain life, sustenance is required. Each human has the opportunity to choose. That can either be an intelligent, well-researched choice, resulting in a decision which causes the maximum benefit to the chooser with the least amount of disturbance or distress to others; or it can be driven by the pure animal instinct - no matter how many pretty words we put around it, the decision will be self-serving and hold possibility of damage to others.

Mother posed such questions. She herself tended to a more vegetarian preference. Her butter bean casseroles were as much part of our childhood as any shepherd's pie - and equally, if not wholly, preferred. From the 'small roots' of her really rather big ethical analyses at the kitchen table, we learned to think beyond the bean.


In the giving of a flower press, thought for the life taken was all that was asked in return.

Today would have been her 80th birthday. Gone, but not forgotten.

Menolyrical + Menosophical = Mush

All of a sudden a few nights back, something made me go to the office shelves and search for an item which, till that moment, had dropped from memory. The 'prod' was a need for inspiration. Thursdays are also the day a bit of introspection/retrospection goes down here. These two requirements caused recall.

The item is a little black book. Not that little. Standard A5 artist's sketchbook, actually. There are a few sketches within the pages, but mostly there are poems.

Well. I say poems. Ditties might be more accurate. It is a strange thing, looking back over one's writing efforts. A sense of cringe can creep up on one. Yet also a sense of - 'really? I was thinking that deeply?!' Pretty much all of the work in those pages was done between the ages of 15 and 25. One thing is clear. There was always the philosophical streak when pen was put to paper. Another theme is the 'human condition' - despairing of the folly which can be seen, optimistic of the wisdom to be found. The strong spiritual leaning also rings out. There are even a couple of poems which - and this can only be said in retrospect - herald the personality which would ultimately find the philosophy to answer its questions.

In keeping with the (albeit intermittent) biographical purpose of this bloggy, it has been decided to force-feed share some of these embarrassing little writings with you. Fret not. Only half a dozen were considered even remotely publishable. Then again, two have already been aired from this book; HERE, and last Friday. From laziness For ambiance, the pages have been photographed; (another reason a few of the poems are not getting put here - they are illegible, as calligraphy was not always as important as just getting those words down, it seems!) You'll see a funny wee squiggle at the end. I was signing 'Ali' backwards for all my works - as they are but reflections of me.

The first offering is one I remember penning when teaching Sunday School. There were a couple of children who could not see beyond themselves and took all the teachings to mean the world was supposed to work in their favour, rather than that they would need to favour the world with their work.

Meno-Spirito; Soul Interpretation (pt 2)

Last Thursday you read how I came by my current name. Unlike the birth name, though, there was a need to know more. Why did I get it? A name can be just a name, or we can embrace its meaning.

Emm picked me up on the Friday evening to go over to the ashram for the weekend residential workshop. Neither of us had ever been there before - that is why she wanted company! Her son had been attending some youth classes there and encouraged her to attend, but Emm felt she needed someone she knew to go with. Of Sri Lankan birth, though her late father was Hindu, Emm had mainly followed her mother's faith of Roman Catholicism.

The minute we entered the main hall, my eyes were drawn to the corner where four, metre-high figurines stood on a plinth. Having quietly followed up on the story of Rama since that night, I knew them to be the sacred parivar (family); Lord Rama, His wife Sita, brother Lakshmana and devoted soldier-servant, Sri Hanuman. As I moved towards it, a sensation came on which made me turn around. I was looking into the eyes of an older gentleman and they were  most definitely looking into me... From a photograph. My heart melted at that moment as I gazed into the depths of the person I would come to know as 'Gurudev' - and I knew I was 'home'.

When it came to the evening formal session, Br Gopal-ji gave a short welcome and advised that we were all to open our ears and minds in shravanam, (there was that word!!!), which meant active and attentive listening so that we could then move into mananam, deep consideration and absorption of the knew information, which would lead into niddidhyaasanam, the meditative state. So many new and exotic words, but I loved their sound! We were invited to introduce ourselves.

Until that very second of opening my mouth I was Ali. "Good evening all, my name is Yamini."

No effort. No afore-thought. No plan at all. Emm stared at me, blinked and moved on with her own intro. I was called Yamini-amma throughout that weekend and never once faltered in responding to it. Gopal-ji advised me that there was much in the name and it would reveal itself to me, as the night rolls back to reveal the day. Barely a year later, I undertook an official name change to Yamini Ali MacLean. Not losing, only gaining.

Almost exactly four years after that first meeting in the ashram, I was sitting in Sandeepany Sadhanalaya embarking on the deepest, most profound study program one can imagine.

I will never be a grand scholar of Sanskrit. But I learned enough to break open words.

यामिनी ; yaa-min-ee. "of the darkness". There are different ways to break this.

या ; yaa (f). approach/travel/religious meditation/support/moving/arrive/...to find out
मि ; mi (v). to fix (as in make steady)/to build
नी ; nee (adj). leader or guide
= a guide who can steady one in the finding out/travel/meditation.

यामि ; yaami (f). sister/aunt/woman of rank or respectability
नी ; nee (adj). leader or guide
= a woman to be relied upon and confided in

यामि ; yaami (f). Goddess - sister of Yaama, Lord of     Death/lady of the river Yamuna
नी ; nee (prep). of
= being of Yaami... and by association, of the darkness.

Yaami is said to have guided the spirits released by her brother from their earthly bonds and brought them to their resting place in the lokas. In Hinduism, death is not perceived 'darkly'; indeed, it is seen only as that bridge across into the light. It is always darkest just before dawn.

या निशा सर्व भूतानां तस्यां जागर्ति संयमी ।

यस्यां जाग्रति भूतानि सा निशा पश्यतः मुनॆः ॥ २.६९ ॥

yA nishA sarva bhUtAnAM tasyAM jAgarti saMyamee |

yasyAM jAgrati bhUtAni sA nishA pashyataH munEH || 2.69 ||

"That which is night to all beings, in that state, the wise one is awake." (Bhagavad Gita)

All Indian names have this depth and complexity and are chosen with a great deal of consideration and consultation on the part of the parents, for it is understood that elements of their praarabdha will be demonstrated through it. For ease, the general meaning given for Yamini is 'night'.

My name is Night; I reach for the Light.

...tbc... WHAT - MORE??? That's logical and philosophical processing for you...

Meno-Spirito; Soul Interpretation (p1)

I received an email.

"What do you prefer to be called?"

This was a polite and heartfelt request, much appreciated. It caused me to realise, firstly, that the Mac History has fallen a bit by the wayside; the last chronological offering was eight months ago... with a sporadic handful since.  In some ways, dipping into bits and pieces is easier for this writer, perhaps less boring for a reader.

Secondly, it sent me reeling along Menory Lane. You see, after that next 'divergence', there were not really any bosses or colleagues to relate scary tales about. There were definitely characters, and bit by bit, if it rolls that way, they shall appear here.  However, the push towards a career in medicine - and that too of the 'alternative' kind - was very much written in praarabdha (destiny). That can only be said in hindsight, of course.

How is this related to the email received? Well, it turned out that exposure to the study of various complimentary modalities also touched upon different forms of addressing spirit and this is a driving force for the YAMster.  More on the studies another time, this is leading up to an exploration of what's in a name.

My parents gave me the name Alison. Just that, nothing more. Not for any reason of meaning, but because my mother and my grandmother were both 'Elison'. The tradition, till the 1950's and 60' at least, was that the first-born be named for the maternal /paternal lineage. However, mother decided that I need not be cursed with what she had all her life... people constantly asking if she meant 'Alison'. There is an irony to this, because no matter what one's name (other than a Biblical standard), there will always be alterations made by others.

Of course, it wasn't long into life before the shortened version got majority use. Ali it was - unless in trouble or formal situations. There was strong identity; always preferred Ali over Alison. In OZ I never used Alison at all. Always introduced myself with Ali. Pet hate? Folk who then assumed they could call me Alison!

Did not really give it that much thought until the time I found myself very coolly responding to a boss who asked after intros whether he might just call me by my full name. "My full name is Ali."

That was the very first time I pondered making that my legal name. Just never got round to it. However, the idea that how I was called held some value beyond physical identification was intriguing. In English-based culture, whilst there are 'pop' meanings for names, we do not really set a lot of store by them. It can be fun to think 'oh it means having sacred nobility', but how often would we seek to become the value or essence of our name? ...unless a bit 'out in the forest'.. you know.. cuckoo, (another name I've been called on occasion!)

During such inner explorations as were opened to me at that time, there was much catharsis. The part of me which had experienced a childhood moment on a hillside, in a moment of dance and again in a moment of devotion, but had somehow lain dormant for quite some years, was finding its way back to the surface.

'Moments' started to return. I realised that I had missed the presence of that inner voice and its physical presentations. This is also when there were serious enquiries into Shamanism, Buddhism, B'Hai etc.

Fast forward ten years. Healing practice had been ticking along nicely; unexpected additional - and extremely rewarding - work in aged care supplemented income.  Nothing was particularly bad, neither particularly good. Then came the moment of darkness. Jade saved me in the moment, but it also became clear more was needed. Despite being of use to a few people and a couple of furkids, somewhere along the way the true purpose of life had been forgotten. There was a barren few months as I pondered how to overcome this. It dawned on me that Yeshu had not spoken directly to me for a long time. Then again, I may not have been listening...  I called out for that voice.

That was the night I collapsed before Him and begged forgiveness for my forgetfulness. I recalled the surrender in that moment of darkness and allowed the whole of me to melt away once more.

Now, it could be left at saying my name was given to me and leave it at that. This, however, would be failing both its purpose and that of its owner. "Oh that is pretty, what does it mean?" is the question which arises - in the eyes, if not the voice - of all who hear it. What is about to be related is necessary in order to convey there is no such thing as 'just a name'. Do not turn away, neither scoff. Know that here sits one who may have been guilty of the same scepticism herself in the past. The logical mind worked all explanations for why others would make such claims. Experience changes that. Then the logical mind has to find out why.

As I sat empty that night, some nine years past, a calmness came which cannot be conveyed in words. I opened my eyes and there again, after so many years, stood Yeshu... well, the essence of being I know as Him. Forgiveness was granted, then something astounding... He told me to "listen to My new face."

At which point He turned around and another figure appeared. This was only from the waist up and was so shiny and beautiful...and blue. I would like to emphasise here, that till this point in spite of all researches, Hinduism had not been among them and at this stage I had absolutely no idea who or what this was. The language was also completely out of my ken. However, there were three phrases which I came to extract from the speaker's repetition of them. Shravanam, Rama and Yamini.
Then He was gone.

Straight away, before forgetting them, I did what any computer-literate geeky type does with questions. The search engine came back with so many things for shravanam I couldn't make sense of them, so left that alone. Rama, typed in, immediately revealed this to be an avatar (human incarnation) of God...'oh. Yeshu's new face!' Then I had a go at Yamini. Except my untrained ear at first had it is 'Yumani' which came back as being a village in Bolivia - and I was pretty certain that wasn't right! Then it clicked; As Rama was a name, perhaps this was too. 'Indian girl names beginning with Y' (it was early days of going ogling and learning to ask the correct questions is half the battle).

The list was not long and there it was... As soon as I saw it in print, I 'knew' it. As is the case with names on such sites, there was a single meaning. 'Night'. At that point it was enough. I had been born at night. The night was when I have always been at my most creative; and as mentioned in earlier post, am quite fond of the dark. The Lord knew this about me and was naming me accordingly. I thought.

Bear in mind that all of this took place without any connection to anything to do with Hinduism. Yes I had Indian friends - but here is where I confess that I never really inquired into their faith, as I had that Westerner's jaundiced eye about 'multiple gods'. I was ignorant, in terms of allowing for there being a philosophy behind such.

I kept the vision night to myself. All vision experiences. They are not easily shared. You understand why, I'm certain, sitting here reading it now. However, the end is not reached.

Some three months later, Emm asked me if I'd go to a ladies workshop with her. 'Where?'

'At Chinmaya Mission. It's a Hindu ashram.'

I swallowed hard and agreed.

...tbc...

Is this still about a name? Yes; but the name is only the beginning.

Me-Now-Views; Less Speak More Peek (with just a hint of the menoloopal)

This first one is not from the Fudge... it's a screen shot from Voovoo the Vaio. Why? WELL... you recall the rant last Thursday about 'big-ether-eye' checking through our computers about our whereabouts and habits? Okay maybe I wasn't as overt in language on that post as here just now - but here's the proof...

"What's the fuss?" are you asking? I booked my flight for the BAR couple weeks back. Then at the weekend I thought 'better start getting serious about routes and travel plans'... where else to start but at my landing spot?... are you getting an inkling?.... yes folks - they know exactly when the YAMster hits the ground in the good ol' you ess of ehhhh?!!!

To counterbalance that rant, here are some menosukhi pictures taken from a holiday in OZ. Mac2 had come over for a visit and we took a trip up-country; to a spot where not even television signal penetrated, never mind mobile phones or internet. It was a week of bliss.
(These are also not from the Fudge - these were taken with the old Minolta. It was 11 years ago!)

© Yamini Ali MacLean

© Yamini Ali MacLean

© Yamini Ali MacLean

© Yamini Ali MacLean

© Yamini Ali MacLean

© Yamini Ali MacLean

© Yamini Ali MacLean

© Yamini Ali MacLean

"Do we have to go home???"... © Yamini Ali MacLean

Monday is Menosukhi day

As had not yet encountered Blogville when the bloggy began, have been taking liberties with re-posting a few articles. Don't worry, won't make a habit of it... This one is on the getting of Jade dog. For those interested in the life story of the J's, do click the label!

There were Jet G-pig MacSqueak and Jasper Cat MacLean, getting on like cat and rodent never should, when along came our landlady - (my Punjabi 'mummy' - who was so happy having a tenant who did more work round the place than she did, she never put the rent up in 7 years!) - who was mystified. 

"Why would you have a cat and 'rat' when you could have a dog?"

Mummy J had three dogs you see.  BIG dogs.  Tara the mountain-sized Rhodesian Ridgeback, who sulked almost continuously. The break in her clouds came each day with the arrival of the postman.  Then she became the Sydney Switchback.  He knew she'd be there, but she got him every time.  MJ and I came to the conclusion he was a good actor, secretly in love with her and liked to make her think she was the very devil herself. 

He was a VERY good actor.

Then there was Sita the Rottweiler.  I always thought of her as Sofa - a two-sita sofa at that.  As canny and sooky a dog as you would be likely to find.

Thirdly came Meena the Dobermann.  She had been abandoned by the previous tenant in the house where I had taken residence.  She was shackled by a chain and surviving on eating her own droppings and stretching into the outside dunny for water.  MJ was naturally horrified at the discovery.  It was this incident that made her become a direct and hands-on landlady rather than use agents.  Clearly no checks had been made.  Meena was skeletal and as unhealthy as all get-go, but MJ put her grand TLC to work and that sorrowful girl became quite the beauty.

Given this experience, you'd think MJ would have been a tad cautious about a tenant having any pets, let alone a dog.

But she had quickly surmised she was onto a good thing with YAM and loved the little J's very much.  Not the same as a dog, though, she felt.  I said my life was too erratic for a puppy.  I was still studying  Homoeopathic Medicine and working part-time.  How would I manage?

Once these seeds are planted in the ground round YAM, though,  there's a tendency for spring to get sprung.  Within two weeks of that conversation, I was up at the mall for groceries and avoiding looking in the pet store window.  Am really not a fan of these places. The window had other ideas though.

Every other week for years I had managed to walk past without its accosting me.  That day though...  That day it had to shout out to me "Look what I've got for YOU!"  I continued walking with only the slightest side glance.

Fortune held the cards such that I had to pass that verbal window at a later point in the morning, but I again managed only the merest flicker of observance.

At the corner of the avenue an internal voice yelled "LOOK AT ME!".

I turned and looked back across and there was a little pudding-like thing sitting to the side of all the frenzy, staring straight at me.  Naaahhhh.  That only happens in novels, right?  I continued to walk.  Two days later I had to visit the bank.  It was three shops down from the talking window.

"LOOK AT ME", it said as I emerged from the business at hand.  There it was again.  No doubt about it.  I was the focus as there was no one else in the avenue.  Once my attention had been firmly caught, the pudding produced a tail.  Long and thin and wagging so fast it was a blur.  Then there were the eyes.  Those, large, liquid, kohl-rimmed eyes.

What's happening?  Feet, stop that this instant!

Too late, they'd taken me inside.  Somehow, magically, the pudding was sitting in my arms looking up at me all agog with "ooh yeah, I got you babe!" written all over its face.

How was I going to break this to the little J's?...

NB - For those who rely on their blogroll sidebar for checking posts, you may have missed the Sunday one. This is a note to say that MenoSunday post is there, but lots of you may have seen a post in your readers that was 'empty' - I hit the wrong button and the schedule went and published anyway. Have sorted that; don't worry, it'll show up again!