‘A Forest’…

…The drink has stirred up my emotions and memories

of the trip flick through my mind in no particular

order but return, time and again, to Cardwell…

Its waterfall and rock-pool.

The water, black as death.

The surrounding rock formation – a she-bear and her cub.

The Goanna lured by our breakfast eggs left out

on a tree stump, impatiently bounding up the trunk

of a pine on our return, its hoarse bark summoning

a solitary rain cloud to facilitate its escape.

Jed and I dashing to the cab of the van to finish our

meal, again!

The trip out to Hinchinbrooke Isle with

its section of rain forest, and then the rain…

eternally beating out time on the roof of our caravan.

‘What’s the difference between forest

and rain forest?’ Jed asked our guide.

I am still unable to explain scientifically

but we knew when we had found it:

the trees were like spirits, immense and ancestral,

their gloomy, white limbs basking in a deep, cool,

stillness which seemed to be of their own making.

I recited a little ‘prayer’ because it felt right.

Part of a poem.

Repeating it in my head three times until it sang:

‘Let’s play frogs instead,

splay spinney pools and legs.

Circumvent: big bulbous gullets… belching rain.’

THE LIVING ONE

Caravan to Cairns

Stuart France

Two young men, a road trip across the Australian Outback, strange encounters in isolated settlements… and a book that will change one of them forever.

From the harsh heat of the dusty road to the cool of the Temple, two stories… one immediate, one timeless… intertwine to illuminate each other.

Many scholars believe that the Gospel of Thomas preserves a glimpse into the oral tradition of the Essenes. The book is a collection of sayings, parables and dialogues attributed to Jesus. In this unique interpretation author and essayist, Stuart France brings the oral tradition to life, retelling the Gospel in his own words, in the way it may have been told around the hearth-fires of our fore-fathers.

Accompanied by in-depth comments which draw upon the Mystery School Tradition, The Living One provides a new window on an age-old story.

“… fascinating and unique …” Amazon review