Aboriginal Middens – sacred and suspended in subliminal time

Aboriginal Middens – sacred and suspended in subliminal time

I wish our world showed more compassion and love towards nature and so I felt compelled to write about this.

I live at Bulli, a coastal northern town of Wollongong, not too far south of Sydney. Walking on the beach and around the headland is something I love to do and wish I did more of.

Just a short walk from Bulli up to Sandon Point (a great surf spot) with views up and down the coast to die for, is an Aboriginal Midden. Currently, it has a ‘rent a fence’ roughly erected, too protect it. This area has a wealth of aboriginal significance. Unfortunately, the fight not to develop the area, has been lost.

Aboriginal Middens are sacred sites. In the Mimosa National Park, down the far south coast of NSW, I visited another midden, there was a boardwalk through lush rainforest to this midden and I photographed the sign below. Thankfully, this area is well protected.

The midden at Sandon Point is very vulnerable especially as a a new surf lifesaving club is being erected in spitting distance. I actually can’t believe the Wollongong Council is allowing this development. I also can’t believe how the surf club is practically being built in the sea!

Here’s a photo of the midden at Sandon Point. It doesn’t look much but you can see the shells in the grass.

Here’s the view from this sacred site looking north. I can understand what a top spot it must have been for aboriginal people to meet upon.

Check out the surf club they are building. The smaller area of fencing on the right is where the midden is.

See how close the building is to the surf. They are digging up the beach and the wash is crashing onto the building site! Never mind that they are within cooee of ancient aboriginal ceremonial ground and/or even digging up the sacred ground.

I don’t know what else to say … I must go down there and photograph the ‘progress’ … or should I say ‘regress’.

Here’s the Midden in Mimosa Rocks National Park

Best use for Ironing Boards

Best use for Ironing Boards

Cycling the hours away writing and painting is what I did most of last weekend. My kids were around, all doing their own creating not consuming stuff. Our music was blaring! Sunday afternoon we went body boarding in the surf. I had orange paint all over my legs! As did our cat, who jumped into a palette of bright orange paint. I also completed a short story of almost 2000 words (over at Scaffold of Love for Creative Writing Ink). I woke on Monday morning for work with a creativity hangover. Such a tiring feeling, but I achieved some of my creativity hopes.

Ironing boards are great to work on when painting! See below. I wonder how long this creative mania will last? My adorable 10 year old daughter created a lovely work of green hills covered in sheep.

I decided to paint a series this time. I let the paint direct my path. I love to follow lines of paint and colour and I pretend I’m going on a journey through the territory of  my life. I feel like a child in an imaginary game. It’s about the process, the spiritual journey of seeking the sacred: the sacredness of creating. At the completion (although I never know when to end a painting, usually, my eldest daughter – has to physically make me stop) I can see the paths I chose on the paper or canvas. (Do I sound like a wanker? Don’t answer that! I believe this stuff, for me anyway, is important to experience being alive).

I also like the journey metaphor for the therapeutic work I engage in. I follow the conversations as if  we are travelling into all sorts of terrains and tributaries. There is no map, just territory.  May be there is a map of sorts, but it is when we go beyond the map – new and exciting discoveries are made.

International Womens Day 2012 and Kyriarchy

International Womens Day 2012 and Kyriarchy


Wow – it’s been such a wet IWD, wet week, wet month, wet summer … and I want to do a blog post for IWD. I was reading a few feminist blogs this morning, when I really should have been doing work for the back end of my psychology practice. It is one of those days when I have a long ‘to do’ list but I can’t get my act together to do a thing on it. And, I’ve had two cancellations … possibly due to this weather.

It is still being reported that 70% of ‘the poor’ are women, women own 10% of the wealth of the world and do two-thirds of the work. So, we can’t stop working for human rights and for women.

However, my mind has been racing about kyriarchy. A fabulous term that might really be helpful to understanding where the love and compassion has gone. My lay view of the word is that it means the the domination of one over another. Here’s a definition:

Kyriarchy – a neologism coined by Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza and derived from the Greek words for “lord” or “master” (kyrios) and “to rule or dominate” (archein) which seeks to redefine the analytic category of patriarchy in terms of multiplicative intersecting structures of domination…Kyriarchy is best theorized as a complex pyramidal system of intersecting multiplicative social structures of superordination and subordination, of ruling and oppression. 

Patriarchy – Literally means the rule of the father and is generally understood within feminist discourses in a dualistic sense as asserting the domination of all men over all women in equal terms.  The theoretical adequacy of patriarchy has been challenged because, for instance, black men to not have control over white wo/men and some women (slave/mistresses) have power over subaltern women and men (slaves).  - from, Wisdom Ways, Orbis Books   New York 2001

Kyriarchy is the word that comes to mind when I think about a male friend who is always ‘teasing’ me about how oppressed he is by feminism every time I open my mouth … just looking at him is like me being the bull and him the red fucking flag. Then, after we’ve have the exhausting debate, he describes the whole experience as something sexual! And I want to kill him all over again. His partner just rolls her eyes at me. Anyway, part of his argument will inevitably go something like this ‘you white feminists oppressing us male wogs’. Meaning, generally and personally – I’m oppressing him … and perhaps he is right as I am a white women of privilege and he is originally from a culturally and linguistically diverse place. So, he seems to be talking about kyriarchy in his argument, when one has domination over another. Thinking with this word moves me, as a feminist, from just thinking about patriarchy and unpacking the multiple complexities of our modern world and all of the oppression.
The ‘mommy wars’ are so painful too me. Where’s the compassion? Where’s the love? I have witnessed one of my friends say to another of my friends, ‘I didn’t have children to put them in day care in all week’. She was oblivious that the listening friend, does have her children in day care most of the week and I know her heart breaks because of this. She doesn’t have the financial privilege the speaker has. Never mind me, who works away from home, more than the average mother (and the speaker knows this) but I can honestly say I don’t have the guilt or the heartbreak – I’ve worked that shit out. Well it can creep up occasionally, I’m only human! Anyway – this is a kind of kyriarchy, when the women of privilege lord it over the rest of us … in subtle ways.  Those who are more mentally and emotionally resilient (usually the wealthiest) lord it over those of us struggling with our mental and emotional health (usually the poorest).
Okay … Happy International Womens Day – I didn’t complete this on the actual day, but go me!!
Bull fighting leaves me feeling sad and powerless  …..
 Read what the bull fighter said. Some one posted this on facebook …
MAKE THE CONNECTION.
“And suddenly, I looked at the bull. He had this innocence that all animals have in their eyes, and he looked at me with this pleading. It was like a cry for justice, deep down inside of me. I describe it as being like a prayer – because if one confesses, it is hoped, that one is forgiven. I felt like the worst shit on earth.”

This photo shows the collapse of Torrero Alvaro Munera, as he realized in the middle of the his last fight… the injustice to the animal. From that day forward he became an opponent of bullfights.

Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso

‘When I paint I feel that all the artists of the past are behind me’  Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

It’s been a while since I’ve posted on Compassionate Flow. I apologise to my dear followers. I’ve been busy each week since the beginning of this year writing creative fiction for Creative Writing Ink. Every week a photo is provided to prompt an idea for writing a creative piece. You can see some of my work over at Scaffold of Love. I’m over the moon because I won the writing competition for January and, not being greedy or anything, I want to win in February too! C is for creativity and E is for emerging writing. You know the letters of Compassionate Flow all stand for things we love.

So, Pablo Picasso –  A is for Art. Last weekend, myself and my four cherubs, ventured into the NSW Art Gallery to see the Picasso exhibition. We all had a fantastic day and were amazed at how prolific this man was. He was passionate and absolutely professional in his discipline to art. His work is so bold and so free. He seems like a man who didn’t care what people thought. Pablo’s style was not mainstream. Let’s face it, mainstream is usually boring. It was wonderful to see some of his early works. My understanding of this exhibition is that it was the collection left after he died, all the amazing  paintings just hanging around under the bed and behind the piano (like we have at our place). Sydney was lucky to have these works on loan from France. We just had to go, who knows when we’ll be in Paris next! Pablo also did some confronting sculptures.

It seems he was a bit of a womanizer as well as an artist. (Don’t get me started!) So moving along,  he lived across both world wars, hanging out in the South of France in World War I and painting the days away, and then in World War II painting under the watchful eye of the Germans. He was influenced by his travels to Spain, the Pacific and by artist – Cezanne. Masks dominate in his work as does the nude female figure, abstracted in his special way. Finn loved ‘green boob’, named by him and actually called ‘La lecture’ or ‘The Reader’ (1932). She’s the one above!

Here’s a few more pics


Picasso's first wife - Olga

Appreciation and Gratitude ..

Appreciation and Gratitude ..

Amir Shkolnik sent me the following appreciation note. I have to say that the words resonate, they ring true. Sometimes I wonder if this sort of thing is just to pacify the masses living in mediocrity and poverty. I shouldn’t be so cynical because I constantly need to be reminded to appreciate all I have. I think we all do.

It’s not what you have, but what you enjoy that constitutes your abundance.

Your real riches are riches in your head and heart.

Wealth without enjoyment is little consolation.

True satisfaction comes from appreciating what you have.

There are two ways of being happy: you must either diminish your wants or augment your means.

It’s always better to appreciate things you cannot have than to have the things you cannot appreciate.

Your riches will always lie within you, not in your material possessions.”

I needed to focus on this when I was crying at 3 am the other morning because my laptop had been ruined by the rain. Tearfully I cursed the stupid leaking roof as I attempted to blow dry the laptop.I tried to be thankful by saying to myself – ‘at least I have a roof over my head.’  One by one my family were drawn from their beds by my carry on. I thought about the fact this is a first world problem and also some people here in Australia have lost everything from floods and fires recently. I thought about the minimalist movement, all those people choosing to live with less and gaining freedom from this. (See this blog on minimalism if you want to know more). We have five computers in this house, I have two in my office in my business I own! So then l felt upset and guilty about being so fucking materialistic!

I hope when I take the laptop to the Apple shop they can retrieve the data (I rarely back things up)- who knows they might be able to get the thing going again.  Amir’s note of appreciation was timely.

Below is a photo of Trev’s favourite pair of shoes … much loved and appreciated by him!

What is more important – understanding the meaning of life or experiencing being alive?

What is more important – understanding the meaning of life or experiencing being alive?

“I don’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive”.  Joseph Campbell I read this quote over at Unbridled Existence, a blog I enjoy following.

As psychologists we use the art of conversation to explore the meanings of life, yet I think more than this people want to experience being alive. In the end, this is what we may really be looking for. When I sometimes put this to people, they say this makes sense. The therapy room is a place where life is not only talked about but felt. For me, therapy needs to be a safe emotional space where new meanings can be explored and where people know they are an alive human being and that’s okay, even more than okay, it’s brilliant.

Often I’ll ask people to notice their bottom on the leather chair. You can do this now. Bring your awareness to your bottom on the seat. Now, notice the gentle rise and fall of your belly as air is inhaled and exhaled. This is a simple way to experience being alive. Grounding yourself and being in your body. Another way of experiencing life is doing stuff, perhaps frightening stuff like parachuting out of a plane, or base jumping! Or, surfing, dancing, having good sex, yoga, changing direction in life, giving birth, gardening, trampolining, painting, hugging, laughing your head off, crying your heart out, travelling to a new place, playing music, creating instead of consuming …. I’m sure you catch the drift.

My partner is at a loose end at the moment, he is without an income and not sure where to turn. Yesterday, I said this to him: “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” A quote by Howard Thurman. I want him to be alive of course! There’s not much point doing something that has him feeling dead inside and takes away his spirit.  Relationally this wont be much fun either.

Narrative therapy speaks of ‘landscapes of consciousness‘ and ‘landscapes of action‘. When speaking with people in counselling it’s important to travel in conversation along both of those terrains when asking questions. When people are speaking and their  body language shifts and their face lights up – I know they are experiencing  being more fully alive. I love those moments and always want to explore more of what is going on for them in that moment. In reading a good novel, the novel will shift from action to making meaning of the action. In living a fulfilling life we need to experience loving landscapes of action and loving landscapes of meaning making.

I’m always thinking about love … you know the usual, what the hell is love and what does it mean. How does love connect with compassion or are they the same thing? Love is always a theme people bring to  therapy, particularly in couple work and family work. In my fiction writing life – I write about love ad nauseous, really I could make you sick. I’m also arrogantly writing a book on sustaining love over the life time and it’s almost complete. The premise here is, love is action, love is a verb, love  is doing, more than love is a feeling. Remember the bible verse ‘knowledge puffs up, love builds up‘, well I’m making the connection here that experiencing being alive has something to do with love in action, connecting deeply with others – not just knowing stuff, being academic and well educated. Perhaps I don’t have to parachute or hang glide after all.

My thoughts turn to the blogosphere, where I’m part of a community of sorts, and to Face Book and all those virtual relationships – do they give us more meaning in life but less of coming alive in life. I’m not sure, any thoughts? I’ll ponder this some more. Thanks for reading this far! Now I’m going to head down the beach to be pummelled in the surf. A place I feel alive. Much love dear friends! <3


Learnings as a therapist. Not having a voice may lead to anxiety and depression.

Learnings as a therapist. Not having a voice may lead to anxiety and depression.

If we don’t have a voice in this world, in our life, with our ‘friends’, with our family and particularly in our significant relationship – we may be unintentionally feeding depression and/or anxiety. When silenced, even when we choose to self-silence, our sense of happiness and our identity may be negatively impacted. Our mental health can deteriorate. Speaking out, emoting. expressing our sexuality and ourselves freely, without fear of criticism or judgment can be helpful. Sometimes we have to look fear in the face and just not care! Feel the fear and hold the emotional space. (I’ll write more about holding emotional space later, in another post)

I’m writing this because I’m seeing more and more evidence of  people coming to consult with me in my counselling practice who have courageously stood up for themselves. I’m becoming even more passionate about the need to be heard because of these stories  - when people speak up for themselves, stand up for themselves (often with fear and trembling) they say they feel better. Symptoms of depression lessen or on some occasions the depression dissolves completely and confidence grows exponentially. So, I am on the look out, more than ever before, for where people are silenced in their lives and relationships and for those alternative stories of when they spoke up.

Speaking out in a relationship may cause friction, conflict – a row! Yet airing things can lead to feeling heard, connection and intimacy. It could lead to falling out … yet it seems if you do more of the same you will just keep getting more of the same and remain stuck. It may lead to self-respect and strangely the respect of others. Living in fear can be crippling.

In my own life, I rarely hold back. Although friends I’ve had for 25 years or more say I’ve mellowed with age and do you know what, I don’t really want to mellow, I don’t want to get out of practice! I can’t think I’ve anything I can lose from speaking out there’s more to gain. I understand it’s tricky and complex. I understand I’m writing without context. I do believe people, in the main have respected me and I know I carry lots of self-respect.

I’ve written a few times about depression – here and here.

Stay compassionate my friends: “In cultivating loving-kindness, we learn first to be honest, loving, and compassionate toward ourselves. Rather than nurturing self-denigration, we begin to cultivate a clear seeing kindness.”    Pema Chodron  

Sense of belonging – inclusion, the continuum, exclusion & othering

Sense of belonging – inclusion, the continuum, exclusion & othering
I often puzzle over what it means to belong. Many of us desire to belong somewhere, to something, to someone. When someone presents to therapy, often underlying ‘the problem’, is a need to belong. In society we are always forming communities - groups, cults, gangs, tribes, fan clubs, friendship groups, etc. A group tends to work best when there is a common theme, a cause, or belief system. Perhaps we like to group together because, basically, we are herd mammals.
I attended some Schema Therapy workshops last year and tested my schema’s. A schema is, very basically, one of a number of ’scripts’ one lives by. Schema therapy can be very helpful for some people and situations. Anyway, after answering many multiple choice questions, the schema I fitted with was something along the lines of: I don’t fit in or belong. This surprised me – I usually fit in everywhere and with anyone, sometimes I’m even the life of the party!
So I started thinking about this, (which is probably exactly why schema therapy is useful). I know I like to think along a continuum rather than having fixed ideas. For example, I love Queer Theory. I like to avoid the binaries and notions of an essential self. I attempt to hold my beliefs/thoughts loosely rather than tightly. I go along with the adage – ‘assumption is the mother of all fuck ups’.
So I came up with the following, as a kind of, manifesto (is manifesto the correct word?).
Perhaps a sense of belonging is not found in belonging to anyone or anything but in avoiding the binaries with their boundaries and limitations. Moving through fear, past discomfort and embracing life along the lines of continuum thinking. Becoming culturally literate so as to be able to connect with anyone, within the limitations of what we know. Moving gently and being creative and mindfully aware of the present moment we are in. Moment by moment seeking to notice the sensations in our bodies and considering what they may mean. Building a practice that steps aware from othering by nurturing compassion and seeking understanding through collaboration. Pausing with others but not constituting them as other, rather embracing intimacy, even if only fleetingly. Moving fluidly with people, for a time in history along the continuum somewhere beyond the binaries, beyond inclusion and exclusion. This may be a place where we find our sense of belonging.
I asked my friend in an email, as a semiotic expert, if the above paragraph made any sense to him ?

His response:

‘When “semiotically speaking” this would seem to be part of the fluid dynamic of interaction, that Peirce embraced in an ill named state/category of sign system/state, Seconds. Subjectivities expressed, inter-subjectivities materialised. Much more could be said here …. I think very much we need enriched communicative senses and models that identify the processes you mention in modern culture – both coming from, yet transformative, of biological and cultural bonds and traditions of family and culture, etc. Peirce identified two other states – Thirds, if more decision making, collective, politicised sense of shared organisation that allows one to belong to a locality, a nation, a region. The First state is phenomenological, that which is given – the earth as a given, provides another vaguer sense of belonging – also the vision of a common humanity. So briefly perhaps belonging can be mapped in several senses and directions. Tantalisingly, Peirce saw all states interdependent in various extents in any event – the planet finally is as seen on individuals also, and individual authenticity or expression is assumed  in any social conception. Much sense of continuum comes from Firsts – the quasi scientific sense of infinity, possibility that is transferable to some extent into social intimacy and indeed constitutes intimacy out of functionality (there also does seem something limited in those expressions linguistic or social functionalism). Peirce was also fairly anti dualistic – loved paradoxes – so is not a good source for the kind of structuralised oppositionalism of some semiotics (Saussure) that has so flavoured some cultural work – perhaps including the discourse of otherness to some extent’.

The Dalai Lama says:

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”

And … birds of a feather, flock together …

Rainbow Lorrikeets

Swimming on Christmas Night!

Self-Improvement ‘Cults’ …Are you caught up in one?

Self-Improvement ‘Cults’ …Are you caught up in one?

As a psychologist I’ve never been one for self-help pop psychology books and I have an uneasy feeling growing about the gazillions of ‘self-help’ blogs out there. Do we really need all this help? Absent but implicit (if not explicit) in the self-help genre is the message that we’re not quite good enough and that we need to improve and change. It’s healthy to want to change for the better but it can be a vicious cycle if we are unwittingly being invited into feeling less because of this.

Making passive income is something we’d all like, being fitter is something more or less universal, reaching dreams and goals is something most of us aspire too. From an evolutionary biological psychological viewpoint it is part of what makes us human and what makes us the most creative and adaptable species on the planet.

Bloggers are busy trying to find their unique selling position, getting a niche market, finding out what people really want and giving it to them freely. Some will try and monetize this and we don’t mind paying a few bucks for some good ideas. This isn’t unlike all the self-help books that still sell well in bookshops.

Some authors and bloggers have had great experiences of personal growth that they just have to share with us. I’ve handed money over for some great courses and e-books, mindful that I’m fine just as I am and being careful not to be vulnerable to the subliminal messages between the lines that I need to be better. Don’t get me wrong, I have taken away some good stuff from these products.

It’s just I was working with someone the other day in the counselling room who told me she hadn’t had any peace for several years. We were on about session five and I asked her when she first noticed a lack of peace in her life? Eventually we uncovered that she has been engaged in the last few years in ‘self-improvement’ or ‘life improvement’ or ‘financial improvement’ courses and online activities. She has been involved in all the motivational movements out there. She spends a fair bit of time each day browsing around the internet and reading self-help books. She has affirmations posted around the place. (Another pet dislike of mine but a lot of people like them) We discovered this stuff always leaves her feeling ‘not good enough’. She was bit shocked to come to this realization. It was one of those light bulb, ah ha moments! For many years she has been working hard at change and really hasn’t got as far as she hoped. It seems she believed she would be some kind of millionaire living an amazing life or something by now. It seems she can never measure up because the measure keeps moving out of her reach. Constant striving had left her unwell and lacking confidence. When she wasn’t actively working on herself  she’d always be feeling a bit guilty.

Even coming along to a psychologist is an admission to yourself … ‘I need help, I’m not good enough, I’m  crazy.’ The collaborative work for the psychologist is to shift this world view, we have to deconstruct how this story developed in the first place. Childhood trauma, relationship breakdown, drug/alcohol culture may have played a part, but usually messages from our society, taken on board like osmosis, have contributed so much more to stealing confidence. The psychological work is to reclaim our lives from all these ‘you’re just not good enough’ messages. They soon turn into the nagging voice of criticism.

In therapy people sometimes sabotage their efforts to change. To me this is actually a good part of them that is saying ‘I don’t need to change I’m good enough as I am’ or ‘if I do change they were right and I’m not really good enough after all’. The voice of self-sabotage can actually be a voice of ‘you’re okay just how you are’ in a strange disguise. Once people unravel all these crossed wires they seem to be able to accept themselves while simultaneously working on change peacefully and effortlessly, without striving. I notice these thought patterns operating with eating disorders where people and therapists can get so tangled.

It’s controversial defining the word cult. In my psychology practice I consider three things to alert me if I think someone might be the caught up in cultish like stuff:

1. there’s a dogmatic charismatic leader of an organisation who has followers;

2. the leader takes money from the followers and doesn’t share any wealth with the followers ;

3. there’s some kind of psychological coercion that binds followers to keep following (the coercion may be very subtle and plays on vulnerabilities or causes vulnerability).

I don’t believe leaders of cults are intentionally doing harm. If self-improvement continues to support your view of yourself as needing more and more for fulfillment then I suggest you be wary. Take a break and embrace acceptance. If self-improvement gurus are always telling you to part with your money so you can feel and think better, be wary. If they have self-improvement course after self-improvement course that builds upon itself then be wary. If the leader is charismatic and someone you wish you could measure up to then be wary. If you find being involved with a self-improvement organisation takes more and more of your time, be wary. You need to notice early before you get in too deep.

Thanks for reading my blog  …. love ya

I’m on my way to making sanitary pads – re: previous post.

If you haven’t listened to Christina for a while stop now and give yourself some music therapy here. You are Beautiful in every single way. No Matter what they say, words can bring you day – don’t let them bring you down today. Words wont bring us down!

A feminist rant – menstruation flow meets compassionate flow

A feminist rant – menstruation flow meets compassionate flow

‘Educate a man and you educate an individual, educate a woman and you educate a community‘. Did you know young woman in Sudan stop their education when they begin to menstruate because they don’t have sanitary hygiene? Only one in a hundred girls complete primary school! And of course it’s true: when a woman is educated so is a community. Think about all the underpaid female dominated professions and the type of work they do – teachers, social workers, child care workers, physiotherapists, community health workers, nurses etc.

I’m sitting up in bed recovering from a hysterectomy. I have a bit of time to myself and I’m reflecting on the menstruation I once had and will have no longer. I’m remembering when I first saw the thick gooey blood in my pants just before a piano lesson. I’m thinking of things I missed out on; those worries I will no longer have like: ‘will I have my periods at camp, or on that flight, or date’.

I probably missed out on a quite a bit of sex too! I used to be a surf lifesaver (in my 20′s) at Garie Beach, some people call it Scary Beach, the waves are uber high. We trained hard and the pain and listlessness whenever I had my period was intense. Okay, so I missed out and suffered a bit, not to mention childbirth x 4 and now a hysterectomy all with state of the art care right by my side. All piss weak first world concerns don’t you think? I still managed to do a couple of undergrad degrees and three masters degrees in my menstruating life time!

Hospital Flowers

I can’t imagine being a young woman setting out on life without period pads. As white feminists of privilege why aren’t we furious about this and making a shit load of noise? I know many are and have, I’m just catching up. It’s only been the last few weeks that I’ve become enraged about it! I cannot believe where this thinking has necessarily led me … even with all this education I’ve had, I can’t sew …. I’m going to try and make washable sanitary pads and send them to Sudan! I feel I have to and I want to, yet I can’t believe it has come to this. It’s compassionate to make period pads and send them with underpants to where they are most needed. It’s not only a feminist issue but also a humanitarian issue! (It reminds me of when we made cupcakes to raise money to help prevent a nuclear war back in the 70′s)

I also understand that about two thirds of people on this planet are food insecure and half of them are female. Perhaps sanitary pads will help them find a way to feed their families. Find a way they may if only they can get a chance at opportunity and education.

Here’s an inspiring extract by, Isabella Kitari Feliciano, a young woman in Sudan: “There are so few girls who complete their education here. Only one girl in a hundred even finishes primary school. But I am going to school so I can gain the knowledge that will help me rebuild my country. When I grow up, I want to become a lawyer so I can oppose the things that are wrong – in Southern Sudan and in the whole world.
I want to change all the things that keep girls out of school. I want to change the fact that girls
have to get married even if they’re just twelve or thirteen. I want to make sure that girls don’t
leave school because they get pregnant.
I want to make sure that no-one laughs at a girl because she is menstruating and doesn’t have the money she needs to buy sanitary supplies. I want to make sure that girls like these don’t say, “it is better for me not to go to school.” (my emphasis)

I’ve written to Debra Dawson, the director of African Soul American Heart who asked me to be her friend on Face Book. As soon as I can drive again I’m heading to Spotlight to get stuff to make the pads, I’m going to let everyone I know about this and see if I can get them to also make some. I’m going to raise some money too so we can get the pads to the women (the making money is all part of my Make Sh*t Happen adventure. I’ll blog more about this later).

Help me if you can, even with ideas!

Sudan – education of girls the pdf file written by Isabella Kitari Feliciano where I got the above quote from.

Here’s a Part 1 YouTube on how to make sanitary pad  Part 2 … I’m hoping for an easier way!

Below is Garie Beach in the Royal National Park


Thanks for reading Compassionate Flow. I’d really love you to share this one around … thanks, love ya