The Maroon Diaries

what magic is this  that can draw such visceral glory,       glittering and scarlet, from the scars of these bitter old wrecks we carry ourselves around in the peal of an ancient song pounding in our ears tugging at my skirts what magic is this this pounding and tugging what magic is this pouring forth like a river      melting we pour forth  cascading over the roughs we make a waterfall 

If you're not from Australia, there's a very good chance that you have never come across the work of Michael Leunig , which in my opinion would be a great tragedy. How much harder it would have been to work out this whole life caper without his divine words of wisdom to guide me along the way. source Leunig is known primarily as a cartoonist, as that's how he came to be known to the world - creating regular socio-politicial commentary cartoons for The Age newspaper. He is absolutely brilliant at managing to capture an incomprehensively complex human emotion or situation in just a few scrawly little lines, but I think we'd all agree that he's not exactly a fine artist. I think it's kind of hilarious that lately he is being considered in those lofty Fine Art circles and given exhibitions and having limited editions released of his scrawlings that are selling for enormous amounts of money. I reckon Leunig would be finding it all rather amusing himself, actu...

While Europe was immersed in what we now describe as The Dark Ages, Arabic and Islamic cultures were blooming, and among the many flowers that grew are some of the most profound and beautiful poems in the world. Here today, in the Maroon Poetry Corner, we have a small selection from some of my favourite poets, Rumi, Kabir, and Lalla, as an example the poetry of the Sufi mystics.  S ufism  is a branch of mysticism in the Islamic tradition. There is a lot of dancing and music and poetry involved - creative expression in honour of the divine. Once upon a time, I arrived to stay at a friend's house and found her in the middle of an acute psychotic break/manic episode. As you can image, we were up all night. I swear I tried everything short of shooting her with a tranquiliser dart to get her to go down. It was indeed fortunate that I had selected my copy of  The Soul is Here for its Own Joy - Sacred Poems from Many Cultures, edited by Robert Bly  as a travelling compani...