The birth of Love and Madness comes out of 4 key images I hold. At times they held me, picked me up and carried me along. Yes, and threw me about. These images matter to me and Love and Madness is an actual expression of those images that really mattered.

Three of these Images I have carried since childhood.

1. An open window heat shimmering over red dust and ancient ground. Movement, horizontal over vertical waves. People, an ancient people, chanting toward an unseen burial ground. How could they, being charged with so much life be singing onward to a place so dead? People, ancient people so much a part of these dust particles, these vertical waves, this ancient ground. How could they be so forgotten except for this sketchy resurrection in a Sunday afternoon sun hazed dream?

2. A picture in the dark, old man. This is what I bring to you. As I stand before your headstone in this family plot of strangers. A gum tree flashing silver grey outside a farm house window. Inside a white china shade sits as a coolie’s hat on a hundred watt bulb. Summer moths spiralling, drowning in the enamel bowl on a wooden kitchen table. You, grandma, mum and dad seated around a crib board contemplating what card to throw in. Dad places one face down says, “Will the storm split and go around us like the one last night.”
“If they start doing that now they will do it all season.” is your reply. I’m standing looking up at you. What am I waiting for, old man, a crumb of recognition, a Grandfather’s hand upon my head, a word just for me, a storm to finally break?

3. He’s a good man. He planted all those trees. He’s a good man, takes God so seriously. He’s a good man, look what he has done for us all. We best cover this up. It is for the common good. So what if he feeds on the souls of little boys.

Three images I have always carried. Three sensations. Three webs of emotions. Within each, I sense meaning, destiny and despair, beautiful and grotesque. These three images have major connections with being in Madness, living through Madness and living beyond Madness. These images led me to Love and Madness.

The background of the three Images.

Image 1. I was born in Australia and grew up on a family Farm in Queensland. My family were pioneers of the district. My Great Grandfather walked from Brisbane and staked out a holding in the I860’s. My Grandfather was born on the farm carved out of the bush. He, along with one of his brothers, moved a few kilometres up the Mary River to carve a farm out of the Wall-i valley bush land.

There were many indigenous people living in this rich fertile area of timbered mountains and rain forested valleys. Indigenous people with their unique part of the oldest living culture still on the earth today. 60,000 years, some say 100 thousand years. Of those people, none exist today. I was 15 years old before I actually saw my first indigenous Australian and it wasn’t in the area I grew up in. In so short a time a 60,000 to 100,000 history of people were stripped from the land. The land of my family. My Family’s land because they carved the farm out of the bush such a very short time ago.
The ancient of peoples land because of their intimate connection for over 60,000 years.

On the farm, just a couple of hundred metres from the kitchen door was one of their boora rings (a mounded circular ring of ground pounded by tens of thousands of years of dancing feet. This was a sacred place for them, a place of “song line”. Song-line was integral in their whole life and culture. For me, it was a place of wonder and imagination. I would sit in that boora ring lost in other times, beyond other times. This land was my place, it was all I knew but… no, it wasn’t? I was sure I was the only one left who ever gave them a moment’s thought.

They never owned the land they were part of the land, going beyond the time of history to the dream – time. My family were of the history of this land. The part who ripped these dream- time people out of the land. How does a little boy hold that?

My Grandfather wrote of his memories. He wrote of the day the last of the indigenous people were torn from this land by the government. He wrote of their haunting wailing, and utter despair. That short account, a single page along with a reference to a young ‘aborigine who could run really fast’ is all I have ever read about them.

I only read my grandfather’s words as a man, it helped put some words to the overwhelm I felt. A boy sitting in the boora ring, being in another time, being beyond time.

It was not only the tens of thousands of generations of a people ending with them torn out of the land but also what the land lost. They tended the land. They were part of its cycles, they were of it and with it. My family participated in the rape of the land, they changed the land. As a boy, at times I was awash with the lament of lost people and the lament of the land. Taking on the ancestral shame of the rapist of 60000 years of coexistence. The oh so intimate coexistence, these ancient people and the land going way back to the dream-time, the time beyond history.

Image 2. My grandfather was a man of silence. A man of terrifying stoicism. A man that always left me feeling so wrong. There is an old African saying “If you don’t receive the blessing you take on the curse.” That was me taking on the curse.

Image 3. Sexual abuse I experienced for many years in my childhood. This abuse was a thing that became public and involved a community cover up and a large amount of public humiliation on my part. Let alone the ritual sexual abuse and its ritualised humiliation practised by my abusers.

He was a good man. He planed all those trees. He was a good man. Took God so seriously. He was a good man, look what he done for us all. We best cover this up, It is for the common good. So what if he feeds off the souls of little boys. Time meanders in this country town. Memories ebb and flow. Trevor hangs himself in his farmhouse. The common good look at each other, shake their heads and muttered why. Me, I lived that why for 40 years. Bruce was found dead in a London flat with one too many needles sticking from his arm. The common good look at each other shake their heads and muttered why. Me, I lived that why for 40 years. What of Kevin who left with out a trace all those years ago? How could someone do that to his family? The common good look at each other, shake their heads and mutter why. Me I lived that why for 40 years. The common good, what do they know of the race? Ever running from something etched into your bones. I think of that man for I know he is still alive. Now that he is old and feeble is it time to balance the books. The strong preying on the weak. An eye for an eye a soul for a soul. Now that the time is ripe. I have lost my taste for revenge. For I am not running so much now a days. Less busy living extreme. He’s a good man he planted all those trees. Here there isn’t a person’s life he doesn’t touch. The common good look at each other nod their heads and agree. But for the souls of the little boys this image is too much.

These three experiences had more influence on my life than I was conscious of. For many years I was busy forever running from something etched in my bones and living on the fringes of things. I ran from the farm. I ran from the country to the city. I ran from Australia to New Zealand (Aotearoa). These three images led me to both love and madness. The fourth led me to create Love and Madness, my limited liability company.

next Post – image 4 and the limited liability company
Love and Madness – healing connections
Crisis to Thriving