Tag Archives: Metaphors
Squeeze-box
I picture
stories
one on each fold of a squeeze-box.
Life breathed into each;
palpable,
real,
physical,
material.
Then,
collapsed with the squeeze of the hands,
air P-U-S-H-H-H-E-D out.
Story upon story,
all together,
as one.
Resonance,
they speak to each other.
They exist together as one materiality.
At home,
in a squeezebox.
Djaburr
I came across this image in an earlier blog and it reminded me of a story that P was telling us on Trail. He spoke about the djaburr (fog/mist) being caught in the spider’s web… you’ve go to find the right one and there will be a song in it. This isn’t a song, maybe just a metaphor for life…
Suspended in a web,
held
in relation.
A universe of
tiny worlds,
all
from one.
Delicate?
No,
strong.
Connected
Filed under Metaphors
The promise of a seed
Last week my friend R shared with me the idea/metaphor that a seed acts like an organiser. A seed contains all the information and plans (DNA) that are needed to shape energies to make a tree. At the time he shared this story I felt and knew it to be true, but the idea, as a metaphor, is taking shape in unexpected ways. He had used the metaphor in the context of social change. The manifestation of the metaphor that came into being whilst reading through my research transcripts was a little different.
Spirit, energy, genius
flowing through us
like nutrients, water;
what a seed needs
to germinate and grow
we receive,
we translate,
express and birth this essence
into physical form
seeds needs to be broken
so a new form
can emerge.
Loops
Post sound-trip to Litchfield with Al, I kept on envisioning sound and how it travels through people and place and where it originates from. I saw loops rising up from the earth, moving up and through people and looping back into the earth. Was this image influenced by what I had read from Maratja (as cited in Christie 2010a) about land, sound and people? He says, ‘It’s the land which holds the sound, and then after that, we Yolŋu people. What we are talking about, is how that sound emerges’ (p. 67).
I though, if there is a cycling, or looping of sound from the land, through people and back again, maybe it would look like this…
Last time I was living on country north of Broome, people were reluctant to talk about the Song Cycle which runs along the coast from One Arm Point to Bidyadanga. I could understand why, increased attention on the Song Cycle from the proposed LNG development at Walmadany had stimulated much conversation and inquiry about it. Countrymen and women were worried that all this talk might somehow dilute the power of this entity… I stopped asking questions.
During my journalling one day I felt compelled to draw this image of an entity weaving through the land, up above the surface and diving down into the earth…
Sound, looping, vibration, snaking, rising, diving, resonating…
Al asked if I would record myself singing. The song that emerged was… ‘Weaving, timelessly snaking through place’. I wanted to use his electronic instrument to improvise with this sample to create a piece of music that would loop in the same way that the images above do. We managed to find a way to do this and the improvised piece that emerged was this…
Christie, M 2010a, ‘The task of the translator’, International Journal of Learning in Social Contexts Australia, no. 2, pp. 67-74.
Being with Country 