"One of Mary’s eyes became permanently closed thanks to that common disease that afflicts long-living dolls treated roughly by toddlers. I did have to take her head off once or twice to see how she was made inside."
Read MoreThere are six seasons here. Unlike other places, where winter is a time of dormancy, it’s a time of energy and growth here. In Nyinnga people can exercise: walking is a pleasure and sleeping is easy.
Read MoreNext time an Australian with fair skin reveals their Aboriginality, whether by their clothes or jewelry, their tattoos or their story, let your heart swell with gratitude that the web of Aboriginal cultures continues to be woven.
Read MoreSome of the Aboriginal babies she cared for were thin and irritable, with watery diarrhoea and scalded nappy rashes. They were diagnosed with Failure to Thrive — a diagnosis which puts a child’s parenting directly under the spotlight. Their mothers seemed powerless. Health workers wondered what was going on in these babies’ homes?
But Christine wondered if it could be something else.
The Opera House is built on Bennelong Point, named for the multilingual Dharug man who became a cultural educator for the founding Governor of the New South Wales colony. Intelligent and funny, Bennelong traveled to England -- got stuck there for years. Perhaps he learned more than he wanted about the subjugation of his people
Read MoreClaudia and I've become fond of the trees of our town. So we were both angry to be woken early by the sneer of chainsaws. Through the bedroom curtains, we saw a man hanging from a tree, sawing the very branch he stood on.
Read MoreThe night is dark, lit by truck headlights, stars, torches and fires. The dancers are preparing behind the bushy mulga trees. Trained hands trace ancient patterns of ochres on their bodies.
Read MoreIn the darkness before sunrise, I blink as the kitchen lights come on. Pulling out a small white paper bag from the tea box, I see its pencilled name, ‘Hibiscus flowers’. I bought these more than a year ago, and forgot I had them. Delighted, I take a generous pinch of the blackish dried spikes, and throw them in the teapot.
Read MoreWe needed to be needed. For some, there was a lingering appreciation for high status, a medical degree being final proof that you were good at school work. Some did want to relieve suffering, usually poor souls who’d seen a loved one through a long sickness as a child.
Read MoreI ran hard, and enjoyed the feel of my feet on the ground and the grass. I was pleased with myself, and expected congratulations. But when I finished, one of the adults said, “Somebody has to come last, I suppose”. I could tell it was a bad thing to be that someone and resolved not to do it again.
Read MoreWe had some seriously ill people in the clinic this past summer. They had deteriorated to a critical condition in the fifty degree heat, not because of dehydration but because of a deficiency of sodium — salt.
Read MoreThey were sea creatures with never-before-seen limbs, fins and strange appendages, resulting in names such as Anomalocaris, Wiwaxia and Hallucigenia. They hinted at the explosion of possibility during the early days of life on the planet.
Read MoreI spent a bit of time browsing the leather tool belts in hardware stores before a colleague persuaded me that it was probably a little odd for an apprentice doctor to want to look like an apprentice plumber. Perhaps even more pretentious than wearing your stethoscope around your neck all day.
Read MoreBeing out in the desert at night is a pleasure. Wandering along the sandy path, we enjoyed the spectacle. Dad said, "What would happen if someone was lost in this field at night?" One of the workers said, “There was a pack of dingoes bothering some of the people,” he said.
Read MoreI’m not on call except for unusual emergencies. I sleep through the everyday emergencies — the heart attacks, obstructed gall bladders and car roll-overs — that my colleagues, the Remote Area Nurses (RANs) deal with at night. This week there are two RANs here with me — for a town at its peak population of around five or six thousand.
Read MoreMy friend gave me her pomegranate tree and lime tree. I’d been dreaming of a pomegranate tree and was well-read about limes. I knew they’d be a good match for our place. I still dream of olive and fig trees. “How many years are you planning to stay here?” asks Claudia.
Read MoreAt first, the stony path was unremarkable except for a closer look at some of the bright flowers. But cresting a rise at the end of the path revealed an immense and strange space — a panorama of desert dunes and volcanic cones.
Read MoreI saw Louise Hay speak in Australia in the eighties. It was perhaps her first visit. My friends and I were trying hard to dislike her. She addressed an audience of HIV positive people and their supporters, overwhelmingly gay men with their partners and friends, at the height of the AIDs terror.
Read MoreThat sounds mad. But for a while now I’ve quietly believed that rocks have consciousness. It’s not that I hear gravel crying when I walk on it, but rocks do speak to humans, albeit in their own way.
Read MoreI’ve known her to use sixteen layers of translucent paint to get the depth of the doll’s complexion right, greenish veins just showing through the different shades of brown. Weighting the doll’s head, by suspending a steel ball inside it (without smashing the glass eyes) makes it loll on your shoulder.
Read MoreSlot Canyon photograph in banner by Sebastian Boguszewicz
Creative Writing by Dr. Janelle Trees
Photo: Claudia Jocher
I'm a doctor of Aboriginal descent living and travelling with my photographer wife, Claudia. I see myself as a bridge between 'races' and cultures, gay and straight, the child and the crone, arts and sciences. I am inspired by Nature, including humans in all our splendid individuality.
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