The Maroon Diaries

How can you 'celebrate' the armed invasion and occupation of the Australian continent for penal slavery and the attempted genocide of the Aboriginal peoples? For me and many other Australians, today, January 26, is a day of mourning, and we call it Invasion Day. The myth of Australia Day was just one of those lies we were taught by society for the purpose of suppressing its true history. Like I said on December 25th , there's no fucking way I'm going to celebrate that. By the time I was twelve years old, I was pretty well educated for a kid, and a star student. But still, after 8 years of public school education, my understanding of the 'settlement of Australia' was that it went pretty much like this - Captain Cook discovered Australia and turned up with a boatload of convicts on January 26, 1788. When they got there, there were Aborigines living there. However, they weren't really people, they were actually just native Australian animals, so it was ok...

As I surf and stumble around these here Internets, I find things. Sometimes, I find extraordinary things, ridiculously beautiful things, and things that can change the way you see the world. Sometimes, my heart leaps, or a shiver goes down my spine. I want to share these things with you. Here are some that I've come across lately. *  Trees will eat the world. These pictures show you how. * Oh, how I would love one of these real-life hobbit houses . * Beautiful art by Kelly Louise Judd. * An anatomically accurate kimono called Silk Me Back . * A lesson in perspective from children not looking at modern art . * A beautiful short film (just under 10 minutes) called The Invention of Love by Andrey Sushkov . * The actions and words of one awesome kid brought tears to my eyes. And again when I read it through a second time. Bonus points to the awesome parents for supporting him to do this. Could there be hope for humanity yet?

I went out early today to give the garden a good drink before it got hot. According to the weather website, it's 41.6 degrees Celsius right now. That's over a hundred degrees in the old money. Positively ghastly. (Question. Why doesn't my keyboard have a degrees symbol? It would be most useful.) This morning, I harvested my first ever zucchini that I've grown myself. I was soooo excited. It's a yellow zucchini, because differently coloured vegetables are more fun. I'm sure I feel as proud of it as if it were a baby. But it's not a baby. It's a zucchini. So I cut it up into tiny pieces and cooked it. I think we'll call today's creation Yellow Zucchini and Corn Fritters. Yum. And there's plenty more where that came from. Last full moon, the sky was clear and the light was bright. It was a perfect time for harvesting some magickal herbs. In particular, the sage and the lemon balm were getting a bit unruly and crowding ou...

People who are prone to listening to my rants and rambles will soon notice that I'm quite particular about which holidays and celebrations I will endorse and practice. I feel the need to investigate the history, etymology, and social and political implications of the recognition and practice of a holiday, and make an informed choice as to whether that is a tradition that I want to uphold in my life. So what about New Year's Day? The basic idea of celebrating a new year, as defined by the revolution of our planet around the sun, is a perfectly understandable thing for humans to want to do. Exactly which point at which to define one year as ended and a new one begun is something we can all disagree on for ourselves. There have been many different systems of reckoning the passing of time and the seasons used throughout different periods of history, by different cultures. They are all valid from the perspective of their culture, but still, we can see that it's really very use...