The Best Part of our Hearts!!

Posted on February 9, 2017 by Rod's World

In my community paper the Northcote Leader there was an amazing story of kindness reported the other day. Members of the community donated enough for a family to replace their car to take their daughter to school who has cerebral palsy after they were involved in an accident and their car was written off.

Stories like this remind me of the kindness of strangers and not to give in to the dross that is marketed as mainstream media, that of death, killing, war and anything that seems to bring community spirit down. How do we remember to be kind each day, lets go there:

1. Confucius was born in 551 B.C., I think it is still relevant after all these years. Gratitude is a great gift to receive but is it gratitude if you expect it?

2. Models do not win citizens of the year very often. We do not make these decisions on looks but what difference these people make: Lean on Me.

3. Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin ; 1 July 1804 – 8 June 1876), best known by her pseudonym George Sand , was a French novelist and memoirist. She is equally well known for her much publicized romantic affairs with a number of artists, including Polish composer and pianist Frédéric Chopin and the writer Alfred de Musset. Wonder why she used a male pseudonym?

4. One of the main benefits of Kindness, we rise together: Rise.

5. Watching small children meet each other without judgement to me is the best example of this on the planet.

6. Did you know there is a good news network : http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org – perhaps we can sack CNN: Good Times.

7. I think I’ll hop on Raymond, my pet unicorn and spread lots of this today.

8. How many strength building exercises do you do a day, get your kindness muscle out and play: Be Strong.

9. What would they write on the grave of the person who did this – I’m sure it would include a life well lived.

10. I gave up organised religion a long time ago, perhaps I could take on this one: Lady Gaga and Dalai Lama on Kindness.

11. Your new daily practice.

12. A man who inspires me as much as his holiness, Lao Tzu, I recommend you read his books: How to write a Love Song.

13. Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr. (born Jesse Louis Burns; October 8, 1941) is an American civil rights activist, Baptist minister, and politician. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as a shadow U.S. Senator for the District of Columbia from 1991 to 1997. He is the founder of the organizations that merged to form Rainbow/PUSH. Former U.S. Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr. is his eldest son. Jackson was also the host of Both Sides with Jesse Jackson on CNN from 1992 to 2000.

14. Let’s do this: One Tribe.

15. Renewing humanity, the ultimate task for people today.

So lets shout out that kindness is one of the factors that makes up the best of our heart, A Ho!!!

Namaste until next time we meet, my dear friends.

I like walking in the Rain!!

Posted on February 6, 2017 by Rod's World

What is your favorite fresh thing, one of mine is walking in the rain!! Being washed clean by Gaia, given a new start!! As we have more and more fresh things taken away from us and given processed experiences how do we claim back our fresh moments?

It is probably in our childhood years we experience freshness on a day to day basis. Running from one adventure to another, being excited moment to moment. What does the world have to say about being fresh in our lives, let’s have a look:

1. To experience all that occurs in your life allows each moment to have a freshness to it, a sense of adventure.

2. Ready, Steady, Go. It’s time to begin today’s new adventure: Tomorrow.

3. Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf of stopping and starting over again. Remember that he is not real, only made up in your thoughts.

4. There is that saying if you have never failed at something you have never really lived. Life is not meant to be easy at all times: Better.

5. Laura Ingalls Wilder February 7, 1867 – February 10, 1957) was an American writer known for the Little House on the Prairie series of children’s books released from 1932 to 1943 which were based on her childhood in a settler and pioneer family. During the 1970s and early 1980s, the television series Little House on the Prairie was loosely based on the Little House books and starred Melissa Gilbert as Laura Ingalls and Michael Landon as her father, Charles Ingalls.

6. They call them cubby holes because if you stay in them you never grow up to have fresh starts: Try.

7. Fill in the Blanks, how you do this is your choice, A fresh start or the same old drudgery.

8. I listened to a great podcast this morning about not planning to begin a new venture three months in the future because it will not happen, get started and begin it now was the message from the podcast: Lay me Down.

9. We have an opportunity to change the ending of the story of our life moment to moment: go left instead of right, catch the no 96 tram instead of the 86.

10. Do you rise up in the morning or get up with no purpose for the day? Each day has a brand new bright opportunity if you allow it to Rise.

11. I love Lao Tzu, he can write ten words and you can ponder them for the next month.

12. My beautiful sisters, Ruth and Jann can probably relate to the freshness of their friendship over the years, they may have even been to Spain: Never shout Never.

13. Henry S. Haskins (1875–1957) was a stockbroker and man of letters. His aphorisms were edited and published anonymously with an introduction by Albert Jay Nock in 1940.

14. I spent the weekend next to the Yarra river in my home city of Melbourne, Australia at a retreat centre. Being near the water, the trees, the birdlife and in the fresh air invigorated my soul: Aloha Ke Akua.

15. Whose life are you living, the life your parents told you to live and you got trapped by the money. Listen to your soul, it’s time for a fresh start.

Fresh has so many interpretations in our world. If it has numbers next to it it is not fresh. Think that if you know the person who made it or grew it then it probably is.

Namaste until next time, my dear friends.

Is Your House Clean?

Posted on January 30, 2017 by Rod's World

My mentor Arion writes great poetry, he wrote this about befriending who you really are:

Oh Great Mystery

Beloved friend who has always been

I see you have a thousand faces

And a thousand ways you dance in my skin

So Before I quest to see your one true face

Let me delight in each and every one

For each is so precious that I sing

From my bones and through my blood

For in staring into your thousand directions

I embrace you, again and again

So having attempted to befriend all the different modalities that make us our own best friends how do we walk the journey of friendship with others, let’s take that beautiful trip:

1. Jean de La Fontaine (IPA; 8 July 1621 – 13 April 1695) was a famous French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century. He is known above all for his Fables, which provided a model for subsequent fabulists across Europe and numerous alternative versions in France, and in French regional languages. What a fabulous word fabulist is!! It means a person who composes or relates fables or a liar, especially one who invents elaborately dishonest stories – “a born fabulist, with an imagination unfettered by the laws of logic and probability”

So there is only one song I can use for this, take it away Slade: Mama, We’re all Crazee Now.

3. You get the whole gamut with a true friend.

4. I have had several of these through my life, includes my siblings and a couple of others: Lay Me Down.

5. Remember when we ………… fill in the blanks, only your bestie can.

6. They are the people you call when you need someone to do this or kick you up the arse: Cry me a River.

7. At one time in our lives, our best friends were a rabbit and their friend in this quote, the teddy bear. I’m sure they did this for us.

8. it’s fantastic having people in your lives that you haven’t seen for years but it feels like 5 seconds, I think this is what this quote is pointing out: That’s what friends are For.

9. I totally agree with you, Hubert, so have I.

10. I met one of these people in a restaurant in Leningrad. Raisa was a soviet submarine officer who pressed the nuclear buttons: Thinking the same Thing.

11. Concise but very true by Ralph.

12. Two of the great philosophers, Piglet and Pooh hit the spot with this one: Friends for Life.

13. This puts you in the class of superhero.

14. Reminds me of the night I ended up in the back of a divvy van with my friend Petar, It didn’t work then either: Scuz Me.

15. My friend Kavisha sings a song Bound for Glory with a line that goes: We are Angels, We’ve forgotten these things and are wings are broken, Luckily we have good friends who remind us they are not.

So fall in love with your thousand friends that reside in your body and get out there and meet someone else’s thousand.

Namaste until next time my dear friends

Action brings your dreams Closer!!

Posted on January 23, 2017 by Rod's World

The women of America could have lain down for four years and hoped Donald didn’t get re-elected, they didn’t do this. They are committed to their rights and the rights of all the groups Donald disrespected and over half a million of them took to the streets to show their commitment to them and their way of life.

What calls people to action and to fulfill their commitments in their lives. Let’s have a look at what people say:

1. There is a famous saying, don’t listen to their words. look at their actions. It’s not your mood that gets things done, it’s your actions.

2. Are you: Shake It Off.

3. In my country, Australia, wedding commitments fail up to 50% of the time, where do they go? What is missing after the words?

4. How often do you go to the convenience store, sorry about the maccas ad: No Excuses.

5. Andy Andrews (born May 22, 1959) is an American author of self-help books and a corporate speaker, known for his 2002 bestselling book The Traveler’s Gift.^[1] He has written over 20 books and sold more than 3.5 million copies around the world. His books have been translated into over 20 languages. Andrews regularly speaks for corporations, organizations, athletic teams, and the U.S. military. Three of his books, The Noticer, The Traveler’s Gift, and “How Do You Kill 11 Million People?” appeared on The New York Times Best Seller List.^[1] Andrews has appeared on The Fox News Channel, and Good Morning America.

6. Commit to the changes that are happening in your life, because it is guaranteed they are: Changes.

7. I use my goals to feel how I want to. To me, it is more important how I feel on the journey than the goal.

8. When you commit to a new future, stop looking back. That was the past and you are after a new future: Little Wonders.

9. When you make big Commitments you may need to do a bit of this, apologies for hurting someone but never for being yourself.

10. Do this, however you choose too. It’s got a unicorn in it: Born This Way.

11. Don’t listen to those thoughts. The Universe and your Inner Pilot Light are rooting for You.

12. Include others in your commitments. People are called to you by how you make them feel: Humble and Kind.

13. Can you touch the bottom of your life, make larger commitments!

14. As Jim Carrey says, there is Fear or Love, Choose one: Fear and Love.

15. I love plants in cracks, they have huge commitment.

I honor the women around the world who stood up for their rights and beliefs over the past 24 hours. It gives me hope that the change is truly coming.

Namaste until next time, my dear friends.

It’s often its own Reward!!

Posted on January 16, 2017 by Rod's World

Being rewarded, is that receiving you a financial salary for what you do in life? Or is it a more spiritual path as spoken of by luminaries like His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Deepak Chopra and Carolyn Myss.

Above me, there is a flier advertising the Compassionate Voices Community Choir quoting words such as Rejoice, Improve, Connect and Learn. If this is what being Compassionate has to offer I’m on board.

In our busy lives, compassion is one of those things that is easy to drop out, for ourselves and others. So let’s have a look at what society has said to remind us not to do that over the centuries:

1. I recently read a quote that said do not complain for 24 hours, not even once and your life would transform. I can imagine the same applies for judging oneself and others.

2. Putting life off is not a part of a Compassionate journey. it would be like being in the now moment to moment. How much more would you get done if you did not procrastinate over things: Do It Right Now.

3. Grandparents are old, even older than our parents, and our younger siblings, why do they cling so hard? These are ideas you need to transform because you will probably be all these things sometime in your life.

4. Always have a mirror around so that you can remember you always have someone to practice compassion with, the most important person in your life: Compassion.

5. Compassion has some worth housemates, these are some of them.

6. Compassion, another name could be heart to heart surgery: Open Your Heart.

7. How would the world transform if we taught compassion in the education system as well as knowledge? I say it would be a very different place.

8. The compulsory cute animal photo quote, If you don’t ask or act what you think is purely supposition: Rolling In the Deep.

9. As Byron Katie said in her quote we always have someone to practice compassion with. And when we get that down pat we can then open our heart to others.

10. I’m the leader, the leader of the gang of compassion I am, so can you be too: Leader of the Pack.

11. Each of our senses has a purpose that can empower our lives and the world.

12. Probably better known as Uma Thurman’s dad, Robert Alexander Farrar Thurman (born August 3, 1941) is an American Buddhist writer and academic who has written, edited or translated several books on Tibetan Buddhism. He is the Je Tsongkhapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University, holding the first endowed chair in this field of study in the United States. He also is the co-founder and president of the Tibet House New York and is active against the People’s Republic of China’s control of Tibet: Om Mani Pad Me Hung.

13. Have compassion for the days to come, keep growing and creating the best day of your life.

14. Thoughts don’t get a lot done, it needs physical actions as well for anything to happen: Would You.

15. They call it the technological revolution, don’t forget the spiritual technologies such as compassion, kindness, serenity, mindfulness and humility.

Remember to look in the mirror when you first get up and say I Love You then go and pass it on to whoever you come across during the day.

Namaste until next time, my dear friends.

This is Brilliant, You are Awesome!!

Posted on December 9, 2016 by Rod's World

Caught up with the woman who started my blogging career tonight at a publicity do for her book on writing, Use your Words. I did her Gunnas writing course about two years ago and had not committed a word to print before attending. I am now up to blog 187. Here’s a link to her web page, if you ever intend writing your words, check it out: Catherine’s web page.

Cath gave some amazing tips during her talk, one being don’t seek feedback, they are your words, write them and then find a publisher or self-publish. Also, that whoever tells you that writing is easy is bullshitting you, It’s hard.

So what does the world say about the art of writing your words, let’s have a look.

1. I think I have done some things worth writing about. Interrupting the main street of Leningrad to run down with the mayor and the Minister for Sport on a Friday afternoon being one of them.

2. Great books to me are just as visually stunning as a great painting. The images you create as you read the words stick with you as long as seeing the Mona Lisa or Blue Poles : You’re The Voice.

3. People probably think Elizabeth Gilbert sat down one day and churned out the million-selling Eat, Pray, Love. Gilbert earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from New York University in 1991, after which she worked as a cook, a bartender, a waitress, and a magazine employee. She wrote of her experience as a cook on a dude ranch in short stories, and also briefly in her book The Last American Man (Viking 2002). It was not until 2006 she wrote Eat, Pray, and Love.

4. I have probably written as many wrong words as I have words that have ended up in these blogs: Elastic Heart.

5. I stopped writing this blog for three months when I had a thinking block that went something like this: No one is reading it anyway, so what will it matter if I stop.

6. I put Namaste at the end of every blog I write, it means one soul recognizes another. I hope that you can see mine in my writing : Say my Name.

7. We are all organisms, from our pet cats to the curious breed known as writers.

8. The world’s greatest booby prize, perfectionism. At the Gunnas master class, our first exercise was to write for 5 minutes, which was actually 15 which proved to us all that we could write: Hear You Me.

9. Just start your writing, now not later.

10. My 89-year-old mum can still recite William Wordsworth’s I wander lonely as a cloud. It must have filled her heart upon reading it. William got his job done: Daffodils.

11. I don’t know how many times I have thought is that revealing too much Like that I have been hospitalised 6 times for mental health issues, then I realise writing is not about censorship.

12. Motivation follows action, do you give up your designated writing times and word targets, never ever ever: Instant Crush.

13. What people think of your work is none of your business, as long as it makes you a better person, who gives a shit.

14. Write real words, real stories about real people, because that is who you are writing them for.

15. I only found out about Maya Angelou after she had passed. Maya Angelou , born Marguerite Annie Johnson; April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014) was an American poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and was credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years. She received dozens of awards and more than 50 honorary degrees. Angelou is best known for her series of seven autobiographies, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), tells of her life up to the age of 17 and brought her international recognition and acclaim.

I say I am a blogger, but am willing to own that I am a writer as well. I think the two words mean the same thing.

Namaste until next time, my dear friends.

Everything Matters, Land is Precious!!

Posted on November 24, 2016 by Rod's World

I am currently reading Stan Grant’s book, Talking to my Country, an indigenous reporter who gave a remarkable speech about how his people had been treated for the 200 years of white occupation : The speech. It tells his story growing up black in white Australia, a country which did not count their indigenous as humans beings ILO flora and fauna until 27 May, 1967, it is a powerful read.

So how do we hold country around the world, I have selected some quotes from the new residents and the indigenous residents of the lands that make up the earth, lets go for a wander:

1. François Fenelon (6 August 1651 – 7 January 1715), was a French Roman Catholic archbishop, theologian, poet and writer. His best knowing writing is : A people is no less a member of the human race, which is society as a whole, than a family is a member of a particular nation. Each individual owes incomparably more to the human race, which is the great fatherland, than to the particular country in which he was born. As a family is to the nation, so is the nation to the universal commonweal; wherefore it is infinitely more harmful for nation to wrong nation, than for family to wrong family. To abandon the sentiment of humanity is not merely to renounce civilization and to relapse into barbarism, it is to share in the blindness of the most brutish brigands and savages; it is to be a man no longer, but a cannibal.”

2. Whilst I am not a great supporter of Religious and Political orders, I like the choice of doing good as the ethics of his religion : Losing my Religion.

3. “Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.” Albert’s take on it. What will the world make of white nationalists being appointed to the Trump administration.

4. I was a year off being a draft dodger because I was definitely not going to Vietnam to serve Queen and Country: War, What is it good for?

5. Captain Jack has the privilege to be able to point out the not so good sides of his country and be listened to.

6. An icon of the protest movement worldwide, he believed that land was for everyone: This Land.

7. William Lloyd Garrison (December 12, 1805 – May 24, 1879) was a prominent American abolitionist, journalist, suffragist, and social reformer. He is best known as the editor of the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, which he founded with Isaac Knapp in 1831 and published in Massachusetts until slavery was abolished by Constitutional amendment after the American Civil War. He was one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society. He promoted “immediate emancipation” of slaves in the United States. In the 1870s, Garrison became a prominent voice for the woman suffrage movement. Back in that time he lived that his countrymen were mankind.

8. For the love of freedom for his country, Gandhi taught his countries citizens the ethos of non violence, a feat that has not been repeated in the history of mankind at the cost of millions of humans : Gandhi Jayati Special song.

9. A fact that most governments forget, that they are not the land of the country.

10. Love and Respect for All, Everyone Included: Already Home, Already Free.

11. Stan talks about his people’s attachment to the land, they do not own it , they belong to it.

12. The beautiful music of Xavier Rudd, I honour that place he talks about his music coming from: Spirit Bird.

13. The so-called winner gets to write history, how much is fact?

14. When your tribe is humankind, and you do this, the planet and the land will have a chance: Stand By Me.

15. Mainstream media has a lot to do with the resurgence of people of this ilk being elected as representatives in Governments. Look up Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party, she can’t spell white supremacist. By the way this was years ago. She was wrong about the Asians, it has now become the Muslims.

So do you live on your land or in a country. Are you Australian, American ot part of the human race? We need a transformation to the latter for the killing to stop and see the rise of humanity.

Namaste until next time, my dear friends.

Don’t waste a good Mistake!!

Posted on November 17, 2016 by Rod's World

I have been reading a business development book written by Jack De Losa called Unprofessional. I have learned so much from it and after putting it down last night I thought about what sources I learn from these days and what were the ones I learned from during my previous 61 years.

I suppose the first I remember is Enid Blyton, an iconic English children’s writer who has sold over 600 million books, who has been accused of being elitist, sexist and racist in our more enlightened times but her books always had a high moralistic value that appealed to me.

How do you learn in these days of instant gratification? Do you Google it? Are you an old school radio and print media fan? Let’s have a look at how the world looks at it:

1. Three very important ways to look at learning, how many of them do you utilize?

2. There is a saying the day that you stop learning is the day you begin to die, I think that’s what Robert is referring to : It takes two to Tango.

3. I was often referred to as a curious child, I’m not sure which definition they were referring to: eager to know or learn something or strange; unusual.

4. We all come out with the same amount of knowledge, then it is up to our guardians to ensure that we attain a level of understanding that makes us a worthy human being: Absolute Beginners.

5. Sometimes I think whoever invented the examination system of schooling never learned this in their own education.

6. Check out Bill Cosby’s look in this clip : Reeling in the Years. My mum is 89 and still an avid reader.

7. His work includes several of the most popular children’s books of all time, selling over 600 million copies and being translated into more than 20 languages by the time of his death.

8. I wish I had known this acronym back in the day of my formal education. Called into the office and told not to come back because I hated it and never used to go: Feet , don’t fail me Now!

9. Gratitude is one of the great learning traditions, in Melbourne Australia, my home town, we have an FB page : Daily Gratitude Space. Join us and contribute what you have learned.

10. What a beautiful quote, live full out, learn like you were eternal : Eternal Flame.

11. Love my Lao Tzu, Confucious – Guess Who?

12. From the world’s most famous quotes author, The distinguished Anon. Get on the Unstoppable train : Unstoppable.

13. They say that it will keep occurring until you learn the lesson it/they have been sent to teach you. Yes, Life never stops teaching!!

14. It’s always an idea to do something with the learning, or it is really an obsolete practice: Do it like a Dude.

15. There is that part of learning we often try to ignore and wish that it would go away, guess what it doesn’t and yes, they happened as part of our learning.

Being alive puts you in the daily learning academy, do you resist the lessons or grow from this ever expanding life you have been given.

Namaste until next time my dear friends.

We’re all in the same Game!!

Posted on October 24, 2016 by Rod's World

I live in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. It was the policy of succeeding governments , both left and tight to place the heavily demonised asylum seekers who had arrived on the shores of our proud country amongst our population. What they did not mention is they placed them in houses without furniture and food, some without electricity for days. This would never be reported in the mainstream media of our country as they are on the side of asylum seekers are evil.

I work at Darebin Intercultural Centre, set up to assist the assimilation of new groups to our multicultural neighbourhood. We set up an asylum seeker lounge to get the new arrivals out of their houses and into the community and provided free English lessons for anyone, some visa classes issued to asylum seekers banned them from working, volunteering and receiving the basic 510 hours English training, but we are called a civilised country.

So who is an asylum seeker, here’s the definition if you didn’t know :

asylum seeker – a person who, from fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, social group, or political opinion, has crossed an international frontier into a country in which he or she hopes to be granted refugee status.

It does not say if you came by boat you were queue jumping, that is something our government made up, so lets have a look at what the world has to say about it:

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1. I was asked a question at an event called The Awakening that I attended yesterday. It was, What is it that makes you lose hope? My answer is tribalism or nationalism, that ethos that makes people thing that there are human beings on the planet who matter less than people born in your country.

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2. What would the world look like if we followed the above words of the great orator and civil rights champion, Martin Luther King : Justice.

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3. I teach English to asylum seekers. One of them is a Sri Lankan woman who was born in a refuge camp in Indian, having two children there. Whose relations paid for her to travel to Australia by boat as she had no chance of getting out of the camp legally, where she and her children was placed on Christmas island and Darwin detention centres for 12 months before being allowed into our community.

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4. This is how having to look after Asylum seekers is portrayed by mainstream media in our country : Share It Maybe.

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5. These are two lines from our national anthem Advance Australia Fair, we seem to have forgotten something.

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6. One of the tricks used to raise worry about asylum seekers is that they won’t fit in. Perhaps the fact that modern day coffee and the guitar owe their discovery to the middle east may allay these fears: Guitar Live.

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7. Our Air Force at the moment bombing parts of Syria, I would call that shock and awe, get the connection.

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8. How do we fix the problem of asylum seekers flooding our shores? Our country has increased its equanimity with each cultural intake of refugees. When I grew up as a child all you could get was steak and three veg. at roadside cafes, I now live in a suburb with about 20 different culture’s food outlets; When you say nothing at All.

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9. William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer and Nobel Prize laureate from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays, and screenplays. He is primarily known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where he spent most of his life.

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10. Before planes everybody arrived in our country by boat, The first boat arrivals, the English, declared Australia Terra Nullius,Terra nullius – Indigenous Australians had inhabited Australia for over 50,000 years before European settlement, which commenced in 1788. Indigenous customs, rituals and laws were unwritten and their social and political organization was unknown or understood by Europeans as being analogous to their own institutions, and the British could not find recognised leaders with whom they could sign treaties.

The first test of terra nullius in Australia occurred with the decision of R v Tommy (Monitor, 29 November 1827), which indicated that the native inhabitants were only subject to English law where the incident concerned both natives and settlers. The rationale was that Aboriginal tribal groups already operated under their own legal systems. This position was further reinforced by the decisions of R v Boatman or Jackass and Bulleyes (Sydney Gazette, 25 February 1832) and R v Ballard (Sydney Gazette, 23 April 1829).

Prompted by Batman’s Treaty (June 1835) with Wurundjeri elders of the area around the future Melbourne, in August 1835, Governor Bourke of New South Wales indicated the significance of the doctrine of terra nullius by a Proclamation that Batman’s so-called treaty was null and void because Indigenous Australians could not sell or assign land, nor could an individual person or group acquire it, other than through distribution by the Crown. a land with out people , and set about trying to wipe out the native indigenous people on their arrival: Treaty.

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11. One of the methodologies used by the Australian government was to stop reporting the arrival of boats in the name of national security.

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12. One of the asylum seeker couples I taught English to were a civil engineer and a doctor who had to flee Afghanistan when the Taliban declared a fatwa on Lina, who was a doctor who had been empowering women. Most people who seek asylum had jobs before they had to drop everything and run for their lives: Getting It On.

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13. Words not included in the asylum seeker who arrived by boat in Australia policy. We have generously given them temporary visas where they must reapply every three years to see if they can stay. What would you feel like in your life was measured on a three year life span.

14. And this is one of the main reasons that we know the term asylum seeker: War, what is it good For.

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15. I have friends who say questionable things about asylum seekers, The first question I ask them is have they ever met an asylum seeker? There answer is usually in the negative.

I request you to research your knowledge of what is written about asylum seekers. A viewing of the excellent Mary meets Mohammad documentary helps greatly.

Namaste until next time, my dear friends.

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Make each day, a Story!!

Posted on October 13, 2016 by Rod's World

Are you a good storyteller? I love listening to podcasts and the ones that hold my attention are the ones who tell great stories. To me, a great story is one that has you live an experience you haven’t before. This means that everyone can be a storyteller for another because we all have our own unique experiences, how do you get other people to listen to yours?

Lets look at what people have said on their storyboards:

1. Christina Baldwin is a writer and seminar presenter of 30+ years experience. She has contributed two classic books to the exploration of journal writing, including the well-known classic, Life’s Companion, Journal Writing as a Spiritual Practice, revised and reissued in 2007 after 100,000 original sales. This work led her to a long study of personal growth and group dynamics and as a result of that experience she wrote Calling the Circle, the First and Future Culture to explore how social container releases needed wisdom.

2. From little things, big things grow. In Australia an indigenous tribal elder Vincent Lingiari took on one of the large land owners Lord Vestey with a simple story, Its our land: From Little Things.

3. Steve Jobs was a classic story teller, he said Our goal is to make the best devices in the world, not to be the biggest, my entire family now has apple computers.

4. How do you relate to stories, do they lift you up and give you a new direction in life. They do for me, it may be a simple half page or a 400 page volume but if they add to my knowledge they have done what is required : Compass.

5. Michael Margolis made a career from Story telling. on his twitter page he wrote the following : Helping trailblazers tell their story. Educator, anthropologist, entrepreneur. Left-handed, colour-blind, believes chocolate is a food group. Try the red pill. His webpage is called http://www.getstoried.com.

6. Our mainstream media tell stories, they unfortunately have become written for profit not the betterment of society. How did we let it become about money not what would help our society grow: Magic.

7. We have all heard the saying you will not be remembered for what you had when you pass, but how you made people feel, the stories that are told about you when you are no longer there.

8. Sir Terence David John “Terry” Pratchett, OBE was an English author of fantasy novels, especially comical works. He is best known for his Discworld series of 41 novels. Pratchett’s first novel, The Carpet People, was published in 1971. The first Discworld novel, The Colour of Magic, was published in 1983, after which he wrote two books a year on average. His 2011 Discworld novel Snuff was at the time of its release the third-fastest-selling hardback adult-readership novel since records began in the UK, selling 55,000 copies in the first three days. His final Discworld novel, The Shepherd’s Crown, was published in August 2015, five months after his death. He definitely turned his life into a story: The Hedgehog Song.

9. Changes, don’t wait to be a richer man: Changes, just gonna have to be a different man. Lines from a famous Bowie song. Don’t keep telling the same story for your whole life.

10. Interculturalism: Love and Respect for All: Everyone Included. I set up a Facebook group so we can share great cultural stories, Join Here : FB Interculturalism.

11. “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”

12. Tenzin Gyatzo, HHDL has it down pat. Its not success that is going to transform the world. Will it be the Western Women as he has also said : Transformer.

13. I hadn’t heard of Michael Margolis before I wrote this blog, have watched a few YouTube videos while writing it, he is a fascinating man, have a look.