so with only about ten more days until i leave for south america, i am starting to get exceptionally excited!!! One more uni assignment to go and then freedom will be knocking on my door and luring me out into the big wide world. while i am away sally and i will be writing in a combined travel blog for all our friends to follow along on our adventure. if you are interested, check it out on http://www.rubyandsally.blogspot.com we would love to see you there :)
i will now leave u with some beautiful images of the places we will be seeing! :)
so for one of my assignments at uni for photography class i had to take some portraiture shots. i enlisted the help of my dear sally for this and we spent the day at the botanical gardens :) here are some of those shots.
i only wish that i enjoyed this class alot more than i did. unfortunately my teacher was a bit of a douche and made it not so fun.
this world can be so ugly. i am sitting in the library at uni and watching a video on child abuse (for those who don't know, i am studying social work) and it just breaks my heart that something so terrible like this can happen in our world. i think this is a huge issue that needs to be addressed in our community, and knowing that there is so much evil out there makes me want to cry. So i want to show you a few videos and poems and examples of child abuse, and hopefully it will affect you like it did for me. and hopefully it will spark your desire to help out in your own simple way with these issues. Sadly this is a big reason why i don't want to have children. its not that i don't love kids, but i just can't bear to bring a child into this hate filled world.
the silent child.
She sits alone in her room and wipes away her tears Hiding beneath the covers so no one else hears ~ She wraps them tight around her to shut out all her pain Praying if there is a God to make her safe again.
She snuggles deep into her bed holding the covers tight Cuddling her little teddy bear she leaves on the light ~ She waits for the assurance that all has gone to bed Then settles into slumber so she can dream instead.
She wakes at the sound of footsteps walking down the hall Then he stops outside her room and opens up the door ~ She shivers with her childlike fear as she starts to cry Knowing what he has come here for though she doesn't know why.
He tells her she is special that she's his little girl As he pulls back the covers into her silent world ~ He says that it's their secret the special game they play For no one else would understand; they'd just take him away.
She lay there in her silence with her clothes on the floor Trying not to think of it as the tears slowly fall ~ She hears the clock ticking as her mind drifts away Her teddy bear beside her where he also lay.
She wonders why he comes to her in the middle of the night When he should be with mummy holding her so tight ~ She listens to him tell her that she will be to blame If anyone discovers their special secret game.
She pulls up the covers as he rises from her bed Tweaking at her little nose and kissing her forehead ~ She watches as he dresses as he tells her once again This is their little secret; she mustn't say a thing.
She watches as he leaves her room and closes the door And listens for his footsteps walking back down the hall ~ Then she cuddles up to teddy and cries her silent tears Beneath her soiled covers so no one else can hear.
And as she lay in her silence with her tear-filled eyes Each time that he comes to her a part of her dies ~ So she curls up in her bed and hugs her teddy tight And prays that he will never come to her again at night.
whilst the information on this video is American, i think the imagery speaks for itself, and is so powerful. For Australia there are many different services available and information. if you want to know more, please check out http://www.stopchildabusenow.com.au/
Pictures by various people, found through google search 'child abuse'
there is nothing i want more in this life, than to be a gypsy. to wander through the amazing world, and to experience everything that life has for me. not to get caught up in the monotonous capitalistic life that so many do. to not have to worry about things like money and to live in a tree in a jungle somewhere or in a cave, whereever it is that the wind beckons, i'll go. to be free and fluid and like the water, stretching to every corner of the globe. to discover ancient ways. to try new things. to live free without worry. and take only one thing with me. my camera. i am really yearning this kind of life right now. i know its not long until i go to south america, and it will give me a taste of what i so desire, but its not enough. i feel like a bird in a cage created by society, and all i want to do is spread my wings and fly out to nowhere in particular.
the only thing i want to do with my life is to live it.
so here i am, stopped at procrastination station travelling in the direction of assignment city. alas there is a fault on the train and i doubt i will make it to my final destination. such a shame. u know what they say, when in procrastination village, do as the procrastinators do!! so, as a member of the town (quite frequently actually, i should really just move here) i decided to hit the sights. perhaps some shopping?? alright, you twisted my rubber arm. shopping it is. i have stumbled across one of my favourite stores, modcloth.com. here i am in heaven. I think that when i finally make the permanent move to procrastination village, i will decorate my home in all the lovely vintage and retro styled knick knacks that i could buy from this wonderful place. and i shall dress in only the wonderful things they have, and drink from cute tea cups and read poetry and be in absolute bliss. There will be lots of wonderful storms and adventures to be had, and it will be a dream come true. It really is a lovely town with lovely people and anything i could possibly ever want. it will be a wonderful life. care to join?? Alas, my train has been fixed, so i must depart the most wonderful procrastination village, and continue on my journey to assignment city. sad times. i know we shall meet again, it won't be long before my next visit. but perhaps while you are in town you would like to check out modcloth.com ? i am sure you will be just as amazed as i was. Au revior! til we meet again.
Ruby xoxo
photographs by 1. http://tomatokisses.deviantart.com/ 2. http://inessa-emilia.deviantart.com/ 3. http://kittysyellowjacket.deviantart.com/
Every morning is the same. The same routine. The same breakfast of vegemite on wholemeal toast, the same walk to the train station, the same people on the trains contemplating their monotonous lives, and Amaya was one of them. She used to sit on the trains and watch the people imagining the stories of those around her, the way she did when she entered an op shop and observed those old trinkets that had their own past. Amaya was known for her wicked imagination and was often off in daydreams and used to find comfort in things such as the rain (her name did mean ‘night rain’, after all) and the gaze of a stranger. Now, however, there were only the same people on the train every day and each one of their stories had already been whispered to her imagination. Amaya’s life had become monotonous and the magic that once sparkled in her eyes had faded and now the days just passed her by, like a star falling from the heavens; without its glow. She was an empty shell of her former free spirited self. She had seen too much trauma and hurt and pain in this world – the world that she once looked at with wonder and a sense of hope and freedom. She studies social work and has seen how human behaviours can be distorted into pure malevolence, like a slash to the throat of society, exposing raw flesh and bone, leaving the insides vulnerable to infection and the likely chance of a painful death. There was little optimism and working within the legal systems made it almost impossible to offer any form of antidote to those who suffered. The world was ugly and there was no more hope.
TYNAN
He was a musician. He was a poet and the beauty he saw around him was transformed into metaphors and expressed by the soft music spilling from his mouth when he sang, and his guitar when he plucked skilfully at the strings. Tynan told stories that remind you of fairytales and stories of the simple raw pleasures that life brings to those who are patient enough to enjoy them. He wasn’t wealthy and he only earned money by selling poetry here and there and by sharing his music on the busy streets of Melbourne city, busking for change. He didn’t need more. This was his passion and what he enjoyed the most in the world. He gets to express himself creatively and bring joy (or even a small smile) into all those who pass him, even if only for a fleeting moment. This is where he first saw her. He watched her walk past him everyday. She had long raven hair, full red lips and these piercing green eyes that resembled the colour of emeralds or the green of a forest after it rains. She always wore quirky thrift store clothes which were slightly mismatched but that fall together nicely on her shapely body. The way she moved was like a dance – leaving an invisible spell trailing behind her, casting a glow around all those in her presence. He could see that she was blatantly unaware of her own unique beauty; beauty like the night rain. That’s what he decided to call her the first time he noticed her – his midnight rainstorm.
He knew then and there that she was the love of his life; the Juliet to his Romeo, the bright glowing stars to his night sky, the oxygen to his lungs, and the blood to his veins. He couldn’t live without her. He imagined what it would be like to be with her, to wrap his arms around her waist, to kiss her, and feel her smooth tender touch against his flesh. To speak poetry with her, and cook with her, have picnics with her, and dance with her. He could see that she had a magical soul that was wounded and polluted by the world, leaving her lost and confused. He wanted to give her some part of his soul, so that she could heal and find peace and beauty once more, so he began work on a song, spilling his heart over the sheets of music, working its way into musical notes, melodies and poetic metaphors.
AMAYA AND TYNAN
As every day before this, she pushed her way off the train and headed in the direction of her classes. Numb to everyone around her and her senses muted, she stepped onto the escalators moving up towards the exit. She reached the top and something seeped into her empty mind and broke her from the familiar trance she was in. Music; music unlike anything she had ever heard before pumped through her veins, giving life to her recently sluggish beating heart. Her pulse quickened and she turned in the direction of the sound. That was when she saw him. His curly brown hair fell softly over his sharp Mediterranean features. His eyes were gentle and blue like hidden rock pools at the beach, and deep like the ocean itself. She could see straight into his soul where she sensed a spirit so wild that couldn’t be tamed. Inside there was also a thirst for life and adventure, and she recognised it to be similar to what she once harboured in her soul also. He was wearing simple clothing, a simple black t-shirt that defined his soft muscular form, simple blue jeans that were ripped at the knees and old black Chuck Taylor high-tops. He was beautiful to her, like a Grecian God and in an instant she fell in love. He had provided the elixir for her soul and the music spoke solely to her, as if it had been written for this purpose. She stood there watching him with wide eyes, taking in all the senses that she closed off, rushing inside her like the opening of a floodgate. He looked up from his guitar, their eyes meeting for the first time. Conversations flowed silently between them as people rushed passed them on their way to work. They said nothing aloud and yet everything was said. She knew him inside and out and knew that she never wanted to be far from this beautiful individual. That’s when he stood up, wrapped his strong arms around her and kissed her passionately. Suddenly the world was once again beautiful in her eyes, and she could see the poetry in everything around her.
you know those days where you realise that you have absolutely amazing people in your life? I have been having those over the past few days, and each day i realise that there are even more amazing people in my life, and that i am truly blessed and lucky. Even the people who make cameo appearances every now and then can make me smile so big, that i am grateful that they have come into my life, in some form or another. Firstly ofcourse, my family. now i know everybody always says they love their family. my family drive me bonkers quite often. perhaps that is what has happened to my brain and sanity. i do love my family. my sisters are both so different, and have each overcome giant battles in their only short lives, and for that i can only be amazed. My parents are both passionate about life, and care so deeply in their own ways. i could not have asked for parents anymore (bonkers) fantastic even if i tried. My friends... There are so many, and i am truly lucky to have them. i think luck is the only way to say it. there is ofcourse my wonderful sally! dearest sally, where would i be without u? we shall be friends for life, and even become old cat ladies together, knitting sweaters with pom poms, and drinking tea in our rocking chairs, out of our massive collection of teacups and teapots covered in ridiculous tea cosies. What a great way to end life ey? :P
My europe girls. emmah, emma and steph. So VASTLY different. but each equally wonderful. they know ofcourse how much they mean to me. the world. My other highschool friends, have been with me through so much, and all rock my rainbow stripey knee high socks! and now thats alot of rocking!
My work family. i love them one thousand m&ms, and each day it becomes clearer and more apparent how much they do actually mean to me, and how much i desire and am so happy that they are in my life. such sweethearts every single one of them. Kymboss, and the A-team, you are amazing.
My new uni friends. i started uni determined that i wouldn't need any new friends, but it turns out i am so glad to have found them. its wonderful to find such awesome like minded and genuine people.
To all the strangers who make me smile. to the boy at work who always is smiling no matter what, and lights up my day because i love to see someone so happy. your smile is contagious. To the randoms on the street and trains and stores who bring their bubbly personalities into my life, thankyou for letting me be apart of it, even if only for a fleeting moment.
It's days like these that i think, gee....life is great!
I want to delve into the ancient rituals of the earth and uncover secrets, hear the wind whisper to me as it tells me stories, feel the earth beneath my feet, and feel my roots grow deeper like an old tree. I want to feel my branches reach out to the sky, becoming free of all mortal coils. I want to watch the rain fall onto a river, with each drop sparking my imagination to beleive that every ripple is caused by dancing faeries skimming the surface. i want to feel the heat of fire with somebody. Raw, passionate, uninhibited love, and even lust.
picture one - http://artsaves1228.deviantart.com/art/Perfect-Harmony-52233255 picture two - http://juliadavis.deviantart.com/art/Fireheart-129532485
so here i am, back at uni for the semester, and all i keep thinking about is my trip with sally to south america in 3 months time. 3 months!! i can't believe how quickly that is sneaking up on me! i am so not prepared, nor do i have enough money saved, so i am going to have to get off my butt and do some savings. i will also have to do alot of hiking before i go so that i will be fit enough to hike mountains and volcanoes! ahh so much to do and so little time. but, it will definitely be worth it. my foot unfortunately is still playing up on me which puts a damper on things, but i will slowly build that up. perhaps a walk around the botanical gardens today after my classes. and i will sit myself under a beautiful tree, eat my lunch, read a book and continue the walk around the gardens. what a wonderful suggestion!! I am blabbing a lot here, but i have time to kill before my class starts and i thought i would share my early morning insanity with you!!! ohh don't you just feel so special! hehe.
Now, Sally and i will be writing in a different blog while we are away, a collective travel one, so if you feel like following the south american adventures that we are going to share together, then you can always check out www.rubyandsally.blogspot.com and travel with us :) Hope you will enjoy. i best be off and figure out how to save my money (stop buying books, and stockings and shoes for one) Much love and hugs and happy drugs xoxo
SO here i was reading Ruby by Francesca Lia Block for the second time, and i couldn't help and think that she was absolutely amazing, and how much i love the things that she says. she has such power with her words and they send me off into another world. one in which i love to be. so, here is some of the quotes that have come from her books and imagination, to possibly inspire you also.
"I wish I wasn't a girl who needed so much but a little free creature that slept in deserts and ran on clouds and lived on lilies." - Francesca Lia Block
"Flowers look like cigarette cherries."
"It seemed to her like she could become an artist there, like the people in books, who did not have pools or Astrosurf or rose bushes or smog or houses the colour and texture of guacamole, but had coffee and books on every corner and museums and theater and poetry reading in basements and streets where almost every shop sold wonderful black shoes with soles that were hard to wear out."
"She was no longer a slow dreamer watching the flowers grow. She was a warrior now. Warriors need something to fight for, though, besides their lives, because otherwise their lives will not be worth it."
“It's not that I literally think I'm a fearie. It's just that I feel so different from most people. And this idea of a race living underground in caverns, spending all their days dancing and playing the fiddle and eating flowers and reciting poetry and sharing their dreams, that to me sounds much more real than the way people live in this world, hating and fighting and wanting and hurting."
"We waltzed on the dancefloor with the ghosts of dead stars."
"She wished she had a little yellow house of her own, with a flower box full of real flowers and herbs – pansies and rosemary – and a sweet lover who would swing dance with her in the evenings and cook pasta and read poetry aloud."
"I dreamed you were standing in this dark place and you touched these dead flowers and they lit up like they were electric or something. Electric lilies. Lighting up the Valley."
"Any love that is love is right."
"A kiss about apple pie a la mode with the vanilla creaminess melting in the pie heat. A kiss about chocolate when you haven’t eaten chocolate in a year. A kiss about palm trees speeding by, trailing pink clouds when you drive down the strip sizzling with champagne. A kiss about spotlights fanning the sky and the swollen sea spilling like tears all over your legs."
"Why was fabulousness important? The world was a scary, sad place and adornment was one of the only ways she knew to make herself and the people around her forget their troubles. That was why she had opened her store almost five years ago. Everyone who entered the little square white house with miniature Corinthian columns, cherub statues, and French windows seemed to leave carrying armloads of newly handmade and well spruced-up recycled vintage clothing, humming sixties girl-group songs, seventies glam and punk, eighties New Wave one-hit wonders, or nineties grunge, doing silly dances, and not caring what anyone thought. Weetzie loved the old dresses she found and sold, because they had their own secret histories. She always wondered where, when, and how they had been worn. What they had seen. Old dresses were like old ladies."
"Do you know when they say soulmates? Everybody uses it in personal ads. “Soul mate wanted.” It doesn’t mean too much now. But soulmates – think about it. When your soul – whatever that is anyway – something so alive when you make music or love and so mysteriously hidden most of the rest of the time, so colorful and big but without color or shape – when your soul finds another soul it can recognize even before the rest of you knows about it. The rest of you just feels sweaty and jumpy at first. And your souls get married without even meaning to – even if you can’t be together for some reason in real life, your souls just go ahead and make the wedding plans. A soul’s wedding must be too beautiful to even look at. It must be blinding. It must be like all the weddings in the world – gondolas with canopies of doves, champagne glasses shattering, wings of veils, drums beating, flutes and trumpets, showers of roses. And after that happens you know – that’s it. This is it."
"What happens to the rest of something when you smash its heart?"
"No matter where I am, I am always loving you."
"And then I cried a flood of tears as if I really were a mermaid who had absorbed too much sea into herself. The tears spilled like a balm, like a potion, like a charm. In them swam a little girl whose father was dying without ever having seen her. In them swam a girl whose mother’s magic – the only thing the girl envied more than anything else in the world, the thing that had made her invisible, the most precious thing –might be dying too. In them swam a green-haired girl who had never been touched by the boy to whom she was so devoted that she would have lived with him forever in a shack by the sea or a ruined sand castle even if he never made love to her. My tears were for me, but they were also for him. They were to wash away the thing that had frightened him so much so long ago. The wound inside his thigh. My tears poured out of me and he drank them down his throat. He drank them in gulps deep into himself, swallowing sorrow. “Someday,” he said, “when we are ready, I will give you back your tears.”"
"The next night I went back to the sea dressed in 1950s silk travel scarves – Paris with the Eiffel tower and ladies in hats and pink poodles, Venice with bronze horses and gondoliers, New York in celestial blue and silver. I brought candles and lit the candles, all the candles, in a circle around the lifeguard stand and put a tape in my boom box. I came down the ramp with the sea lapping at my feet and the air like a scarf of warm silk and the stars like my tiara. And my angel was sitting there solemnly in the sand, sitting cross-legged like a buddha, with sand freckling his brown limbs and he watched me the way no boy had ever watched me before, with so much tenderness and also a tremendous sorrow, which was what my dances were about just as much, the sorrow of not being loved the way my womb, rocking emptily inside of me, insisted I be loved, the sorrow of never finding the thing I had been searching for."
"I wanted him to hold me, to take care of me. To make the pain dissolve away. I know that this was part of what had ruined everything but I wanted it once more anyway."
"...choose to believe in your own myth your own glamour your own spell a young woman who does this (even if she is just pretending) has everything...."
"Nothing happened. And everything did. Your whole life you can be told something is wrong and so you believe it. Why should you question it? But then slowly seeds are planted inside of you, one by one, by a touch or a look or a day skateboarding in a park, and they start to burst out of old hulls shells and they start to sprout. And pretty soon there are so many of them. They are named Love and Trust and Kindness and Joy and Desire and Wonder and Spirit and Soulmate. They grow into a garden so dense and thick that it starts to invade your brain where the old things you were once told are dying."
"Pain can give you sight or make you blind."
"Think of your pain like a bunch of red roses, a beautiful thorn necklace. Everyone has one."
"Just like any woman,...we weave our stories out of our bodies. Some of us through our children, or our art; some do it just by living. It's all the same."
"Sometimes she has imagined what it would be like to fly, to live in the river, to run like a horse. She has dreamed of that freedom, that power, and fears the wildness in herself that wants to live as beasts live, moved purely by need and desire. She has felt torn between the heat of her limbs and the thoughts in her mind telling her to be careful and good and always calm. Don't scream or cry, don't run to him and throw yourself at his feet, pleading for him to take you in his arms, don't strip off your clothes and run naked to the water, wild with wanting."
"Our eyelashes brushed like they would weave together by themselves, turning us into one wild thing. I say, “I think I missed you before I met you even.”"
"We both believe in monsters. But all the ghosts and demons are you. And all the angels and genies are you. All the kings, queens, Buddhas, beautiful boys. Inside you. No one can take them away."
"Love is a dangerous angel."
"You must reach inside yourselves where I live like a story, not old, not young laughing at my own sorrow, weeping pearls at weddings, wielding a torch to melt sand into something clear and bright."
"What shall we do, all of us? All of us passionate girls who fear crushing the boys we love with our mouths like caverns of teeth, our mushrooming brains, our watermelon hearts?"
"Maybe I would become a mermaid... i would live in the swirling blue-green currents, doing exotic underwater dances for the fish, kissed by sea anemones, caressed by seaweed shawls. I would have a dolphin friend. He would have merry eyes and thick flesh of a god. My fingernails would be tiny shells and my skin would be like jade with light shining through it I would never have to come back up."
"Morning. Strawberry sky dusted with white winter powder sugar sun. And nobody to munch on it with."
"Sometimes you fall, spinning through space, grasping for the things that keep you on this earth. Sometimes you catch them. They can be the hands of the people you love. They can be your pets- pups with funny names, cats with ferocious old souls. The thing that keeps you here can be your art. It can be things you have collected and invested with a certain sense of meaning. A flowered, buckled treasure chest of secrets. Shoes that make you taller and, therefore, closer to the heavens. A suit that belonged to your fairy godmother. A dress that makes you feel a little like the Goddess herself. Sometimes you keep falling; you don't catch anything. Sometimes you fall, spinning through space, grasping for the things that keep you here. Sometimes you catch them. Sometimes you don't. Sometimes they catch you."
"This was not a faerie tale. This was not the movies. This was life. It hurt more. It was excruciating. It was excruciatingly beautiful."
"The wishes might not come true the way you think they will, not everything will be perfect, but love will come because it always does, because why else would it exist and it will make everything hurt a little less. You just have to believe in yourself."
"I will be thin and pure like a glass cup. Empty. Pure as light. Music. I move my hands over my body - my shoulders, my collarbone, my rib cage, my hip bones like part of an animal skull, my small thighs. In the mirror my face is pale and my eyes look bruised. My hair is pale and thin and the light comes through. I could be a lot younger than seventeen. I could be a child still, untouched."
"But be careful; sand is already broken but glass breaks. The shoes are for dancing, not running away."
"The most Beautiful people are the ones that don't look like one race or even one sex."
"Wish on everything. Pink cars are good, especially old ones. And stars of course, first stars and shooting stars. Planes will do if they are the first light in the sky and look like stars. Wish in tunnels, holding your breath and lifting your feet off the ground. Birthday candles. Baby teeth."
"Magic can be found in stolen moments."
"You are in my blood. I can't help it. We can't be anywhere except together"
I can't take credit for putting all these quotes together, so i must thank quiteunexpectedly.blogspot.com
i think out out all of these quotes, the one that sticks out most for me at this point in my life is "I wish I wasn't a girl who needed so much but a little free creature that slept in deserts and ran on clouds and lived on lilies." - Francesca Lia Block
I wish i could be more free, and be a gypsy and travel the world with only wild spirit and a thirst for life. i wish i wasn't caught up in the values that society has outline for us. i wish money wasnt so important (unfortunately we need it to travel and live) but i wish it was a luxury that we could do without. and someday i will. someday i will have the courage to ignore the temptations that money brings, and instead listen to the call of the wind and the rain, and follow my heart, barefoot into the life of a gypsy, taking only what i require from the earth, and giving back everything that i am able. Someday seems like an impossibley distant date, but everyday i get closer to it. and someday, i will make it there.
keep dreaming and finding your inspiration. Love Ruby xoxo
the adventures have begun. down by the seaside. i made new friends. I went away for a few days with some new friends from uni. some truly wonderful people, all completely different, and all equally amazing in their own way. we played boardgames and enjoyed a spa, and even brushed up on some marvellous new tricks with glow in the dark poi, and fire poi, and the diablo.
i had time to edit older photographs (above) and take new photographs (below). we all grabbed pots and pans and spoons and chairs and a guitar and all made random music in our loungeroom, before taking it to the street and creating random music for everyone around.
we then played guitar and sang together on the beach at night, and played with glowing poi and all watched the bright lights make interesting patterns against the dark night sky. the stars were so beautiful. the next night it rained, and the sound and smell was amazing. i love the rain. i took this oppurtinity to frolic (atleast as much as i could with my foot still healing). it was amazing. The few days were wonderful, and i am so glad to know such exquisite people.
