and this is what I got

This was my birthday present.  A moment of such delight and wonder that it sank in deep and stayed.

On the day of my birthday we went to the Daintree forest, took the ferry over the Daintree river, explored and frolicked, terrified ourselves with the prospect of coming face-to-face with a Cassowary (if only we could have been that lucky), and saw a tiny bit of Cape Tribulation.  On a deserted beach at Cape Tribulation were the most superb decorations – made I think by sand crabs.

This little pattern kept repeating for me while we were away – sprays of sand (as above) on beaches – including the one at Port Douglas, on an anthill on the way to the Tablelands, in Zara’s drawings (circles, and circles and circles, and even in the journeys we took from our apartment leading out, stopping, going back, stopping, going further, stopping.  In groupings of people at markets we visited, on a plate in a restaurant, and in a gathering of fish by our boat eagerly snatching up prawn shells on the way home from the Low Isles – to see a part of the Barrier Reef (yes, this is the boat we went on).

The spreading pattern has become a symbol of our very special time away for me, and it must be captured and explored.  Not sure how yet, and a painting would be appropriating aboriginal motifs in some way I feel – which is not to be done.

I look at that image and feel peace, and stillness, and mystery.  What was in that hole – what does the world look like to it.

I wonder…