It’s been a huge few days since we first started to realise that it looked like Brisbane would be hit by another of the cyclical floods that happen every 30 to 40 years.

Brisbane is at the end of the Brisbane River, a long, slow moving, meandering brown waterway that drains much of the country from the Great Dividing Range to the west and into the north. As noted by John Oxley as the first explorer in 1823 when he sailed upstream to where Brisbane now sits, the river has no watershed to keep the flow constant but relies on rainfall from it’s catchment. This inevitability leads to periods of low flow where the river becomes a tidal stream washing upstream on the high tide and downstream on the low tide, much like we’ve had for the last 20 years of drought. He noted from the rotting vegetation high on Spring Hill and Kangaroo Point that this natural choke between these high points must cause massive floods during high rainfall.

Water Creeping Up My Street

John Oxley is basically correct and it seem that the cycle of this flood is based on the La Nina oceanic temperature phenomena where the water temperature warms causing greater precipitation, including cyclones which can impact on Brisbane as happened in the 1974 flood. This cycle has lead to minor and more occasional major floods in 1865, 1893, 1931, 1974 and now 2011.

I remember well, as a 14 year old in Toowoomba, watching the black and white television images of the massive destruction and flooding that was the Brisbane flood of 1974, wondering what it would be like to experience that event, and yes even wondering of how exciting it might be to be involved – Now I know.

On Monday the 10 January 2011 a slow moving trough had settled over the catchment of the Brisbane River dumping rain on the already soaked area that had seen an unusually high rainfall. The long ten year drought had well and truly broken and now the dams were fall and spilling, a vast change from when there was but 25% in them just a few years ago. How good was it to now not to be on water restrictions and able to use water freely but this was getting ridiculous now, with rain soaked ground causing each new drop to run off filling the flood mitigation percentages of the dams and swelling the streams.

Then the unthinkable happened, something that no one has ever heard or seen before. My home town of Toowoomba high on the range at 340m above sea level, sat in a place where the dense moist air rose, chilled and dumped it’s contents on the escarpment and on Toowoomba itself. It was as if God had emptied a bucket on the town, filling the creeks, flash flooding the shops, sweeping away everything in it’s path including cars, shipping containers and people. Sadly two people died when they were trapped in their vehicles by this surging wall of water. This is what they had to deal with in the Toowoomba Flood

Then it got worse…

The water that was dumped on Toowoomba flows west to the Darling Downs causing flooding in many smaller towns, some for the second time in a fortnight but what happened to the east was of biblical proportions of horror.

As the cool air rose up the range it precipitation out and dumped onto the escarpment creating a high speed wall of water that instantly roared through the Lockyer Valley wiping out low lying areas around the towns of Withcott, Grantham, Gatton, Laidley. The first of these towns copped the full force of the physics of throwing water down a slope. A deluge of high speed water wiping clean everything it it’s path, livestock, cars, houses and people.

Just imagine sitting down to lunch like on any normal day then hearing a freight train coming and have to run for your life with no more than two minutes to get to safe ground leaving everything behind. How would you feel? I can’t comprehend how difficult that would be to deal with and how quickly it would be necessary to think and comprehend the enormity of the situation.

That was the worst of it but as the flow moved downstream swelling creeks and rivers, rapidly flooding downstream communities the rain also continued to descend filling all the catchments particularly the giant Wyvenhoe Dam to 190% of it’s total 225%. The dam could no longer keep all the water back with the huge inflows coming into it and had to release a controlled amount to balance it’s inflow with the impact downstream where it would be joining with the Tsunami coming down the Lockyer Valley swelling the Bremer River and flooding Ipswich.

Once these two flows meet they then combine to impact on all areas downstream swelling that slow moving meandering waterway that is the Brisbane River into the tumultuous maelstrom that becomes the great flood of 2011.

Brisbane is lucky.

Unlike Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley where the folk had minutes to evacuate, or a few dozen hours for Ipswich, Brisbane has had a couple of days to prepare.

On Monday night I thought “this might be it”, but I slept well in my bed wondering what tomorrow would bring. The next morning I decided to help a friend move some things as she might get a little water through her place but on the way to her place I heard that my street in West End was told to prepare for flood waters in the next couple of hours.

Time to ramp up!

I’ve emotionally prepared for this event for as long as I’ve owned my unit as I knew it was in the area prone to this flooding so I had considered all options and like all triage I had my priorities. Considering the options of, if I only had a few hours, to having a few days. In order of importance they are:

1. All electronic technology – computers, hard drive, recorders etc.
2. Personal papers and memorabilia
3. Clothes
4. Secondary clothes and personal effects
5. Furniture
6. Everything else I would rather not get wet

I raced home and started with the priorities loading precious item into my car while glancing down the road to see if the impending flood was approaching – it wasn’t. So I kept working with the help of friends and my daughter to load things. Once I had the priorities I went to take my daughter to her Mums but couldn’t get through due to road blocks so I took her to stay at a friends.

How wonderful people can be in times of stress.

Without hesitation my daughter’s friend’s parents were happy to accommodate her and for me to unload my car into their home. They then offer me storage and transport for the mattresses and fridge that I was prepared to sacrifice to the flood waters along with anything else that I wanted to get out. How good was that. I could now save more things and move further down the list of items to keep from getting wet

It’s now been three weeks – 7 February 2011

As I pick up the keyboard I’m now sitting high and dry with the flood now three weeks behind me. I wrote the above section during the weird period of waiting for inundation. I had completed all the preparation, rescued all that I could and it was just time to wait and see what would happen while staying with friends high and dry in comfort away from the mayhem only a few kilometres away.

After three days the word came through that the flood could potentially be 2 metres above the 1974 flood level. With that I decided to finally strip some of the fixtures from my unit but as it turned out their estimates were incorrect and the water came to the neighbours property right up to my boundary – I dodged a bullet. Another half metre and it would have been over my floor and everything would have been different but I was fine and untouched.

What have I been doing these three weeks?

As I had move out I decided to take advantage of the situation. After I had helped clean up a friends home who had a small amount or water over her tiled floor and help her move back in I decided to repaint and renovate my unit. To turn an unexpected annoyance into a positive outcome for myself. Now I have a freshly painted and I’m in the process of redecorating it as I can afford, to create a new environment more conjusive to the work that I’m now doing from home.

I’ve come from this whole event in a better condition than I went into it. I have a renovated home, I’ve had an adventure protecting myself and helping others, I have some interesting stories to share and I’ve only been inconvenienced and lost three weeks production. I’ve been so lucky.

There are people in my community who are in a similar situation like myself where they have been only inconvenienced, then there are people who have lost everything, home, furnishings and even lives. Here are aerial images of the scale of the flood.

The people in the Lockyer Valley have been devastated by what happened to them with 21 dead and still 9 missing. What I went through was nothing compared to being an elderly person and having every possession swept away by the flood waters – How do you recover from that?

After the flood.

As the flood waters subsided the one stunningly, wonderful thing that came from it was the way the unaffected areas of Brisbane and the greater South East rallied to support and help. Tens of thousands of volunteers came out of the woodwork to help clean up the stinking, slimy muck that had covered roads and seeped into every crevice of people homes and lives. People rallied and formed teams to sweep, hose and wash down lives so they could dry out and start again. There were so many volunteers that some people had to be turned away.

Independent crews of people organised themselves to set up bar-b-cues to make food, deliver coffee and water to clean up gangs all at their own expense and on their own initiative. The community spirit and good will to help those less fortunate was stunning to witness and gives me hope that people still care for each other and it’s not just about the almighty dollar after all.

In just ten days from the flood waters subsiding 90% of Brisbane that was affected seems to be back up and operation. Sure there are some aspects that will take years to rebuild like the ferry services and many business will fail because of the floods of 2011 but in just a couple of weeks this city is operating again and getting on with it. It amazes me how quickly things have recovered.

Today I’m back on deck looking forward to getting back into production of my shows and picking up where I was before I was distracted by other events. It’s been one of those huge experiences of life, full of stories shared with my community. A community spirit that has heartened and encouraged me and a moment in time that we can all talk about into the future.

Does this mean that if I am fearful or anxious I’m identifying with the event with my ego? I think so.

I’ve always said that I have “Beginners Luck”. The number of times that I’ve done something for the first time and done it initially with ease is staggering. I remember when I started skydiving at 17 years of age. I went to the drop zone the first weekend and did my training and the following weekend I went to do my first jumps. That weekend I did four static line jumps, each and every one was copy book perfect. Everyone praised me, paying complements as to my natural abilities. Then the following week end I returned to continue and failed monumentally, moving onto free fall and tumbling out of control eventually returning to static line descendants and doing 13 instead of the usual five until I eventually moved onto free-fall again. It was even recommended that I should give it away. Ultimately I amassed 2000 skydives and became an instructor at 19. By then I was humbled by by initiation into the sport.

For a short time when I was about 30 I had a sales job using a style of sales similar to encyclopaedia selling where I had to present to people in their homes from a script and eventually close the deal. After the initial training I went out on my first day to present, not expecting any results as I was such a raw recruit and managed to sell four out of five presentations blowing everyones expectations, including mine, out of the water. The following six weeks were harrowing as I slowly started to stress and didn’t sell one programme until eventually I decided to give it away and on my last presentation I sold two unexpectedly to the client and her friend who just happened to be sitting in. I’m sure I sold on the last day because I no longer had an attachment to the outcome, the stress of achieving was removed and my ego was now out of the picture.

This has happened in all the fields that I have ventured into where the first time I do something, I do well as I have no expectations, my ego is subdued as I’m only starting and I don’t expect any results. Because I’m completely with the experience and not at all in my ego I allow anything to happen and it resolves in ways far better than I would have expected. It’s even happened with the first time I played lotto and won $35 because there is no chance to win on my first attempt and I’ve never won anything since.

The problem is that once I have the initial success, I then buy into others and my own expectations based on the past experience and extrapolate it out into the future, then naturally expect the evolvement of the good fortune into something grand. Then when it doesn’t materialise I become demoralised, think of it as a failure and it all falls apart. If I do keep at it in the long term and persevere through the negative period as I did with skydiving and my trade skill I notice that I eventually return to the level of success that I originally had but now I’ve been humbled by the experience of doing so poorly during the intervening period. I then don’t think of what I do as being anything special but think of it as something that anyone can do, as is really the case. If I can do something anyone can and often times anyone has, so why should I think that I’m anything special. This is what I find so interesting.

I seem to be blessed with some innate natural talents which enable me to do well initially but if I allow my ego to rise up even at the most basic level I come unstuck then my ego feels blighted by the failure and stress develops and a downward cycle begins. What if I don’t allow my ego into the picture? What if I simply say “this person which is me is doing this thing and it will be as it will be”? If the goal of the day is achieved or not is irrelevant. It’s only important to do the task as seems appropriate with no judgement of whether it is good or bad, which is a judgement in itself. Just let it be and not to identify with the event in anyway as being something personal.

That’s the take home, “not to identify with the event in anyway as being something personal” which has to exclude any form of ego.

Last year I sat down with some serious consideration to goal setting and planning out my year ahead.What I hoped to have for my podcast, income, home and social life. Then as the year wore on I realised that despite my good intentions many other things were being thrown up in my path creating situations that prevented or changed the direction of things that I had set out to achieve. Some improvements some challengers but things that changed where I thought I was travelling, thereby creating a feeling in me that I didn’t have control on my life and frustration that I wasn’t able to make the goals realised as I was told would be achieved if I followed the rules of goal setting. Basically what I’m saying is that the classic western goal setting model doesn’t seem to work for this little black duck.

So as I mentioned in the last post, as I started on this exercise in May to just opt out of what is expected and make my decisions based on what is appropriate in each moment and the relative ease at which my life now seems to be evolving I’ve decided on some new goals for this new year.

• Goal 1 – I intend to be fully engaged with every activity and make any decisions that need to be taken in that moment.
• Goal 2 – Any time I fall into emotional considerations of the future or reminiscences of the past I’ll concentrate on Goal 1.

If you haven’t realised goal 2 is actually a variation on goal 1. It’s just that I’m still not brilliant at this and I sometimes have to remind myself to go to Goal 1.

Oh! and just in case you think this is not, or is a real goal, I don’t mind what happens anyway.

I’m just here Now.

Life is a Game
A Game to be Played
You can never Lose
You can only Win
So long as You Play. ’91

Back when I came up with the idea and started Your Story I commented on how the years were all the same and the disappointment that there wasn’t any real change from year to year, of my desire to shake that up. Now it’s now been nearly 3 years.

I didn’t really have any idea what I was doing when I started on this path those few years ago but I knew that I needed to start and see where it would go. The first 15 years of my adult life were wonderful years with a great marriage, adventure and achievements but after that it was particularly tough. Now I can say that of the last 15 years since my marriage went south these last 3 years have been the best, most rewarding and enlightening years.

When my daughter was little I used to say that I was running a one off, 18 year experiment in parenting and I’d get back with the results on whether I achieved anything when she is 18. Now that she is I think that experiment has been very successful but that is another story. Just the same as parenting, this last year I’ve been running another experiment in not planning, not goal setting but

Ian in Buenos AIres

simply going where the moment takes me. It started way back in May when I decided, just for one week to have a Societyfast. What could go wrong for one week of not buying into all the stuff of society?

As it turns out after that week I decided not to reconnect with the system and that’s the way it’s been all year since then. Now I’ve always done things somewhat my own way but this was really ramping it up. I have for the majority of the year slept, worked, danced and travelled as it’s seemed right in the moment. I’ve done my best not to project into the future and reminisce on the past. I have at times been far from perfect from achieving this and I have sometimes bought into fear and sentimentality but generally I’ve been able to reconnect after a time and just enjoy the moment. And what wonderful moments I’ve had.

In the last year I’ve only worked about 10 weeks which has caused me to live very lean but my life is wonderful and rich with friends old and new. I have a wonderful social life thanks to my dancing and all that Tango has given me. I’ve travelled yet again, this time to Buenos Aires. I’ve worked for a time with an artist and on Narnia – The Voyage of the Dawn Treader where I made some wonderful things. The podcast is evolving and I’ve managed to meet and get a whole new level of guests to come onto the show. My skills have continued to improve both with audio and video while some people, though only a few, seem to like what I’m producing and keep coming back.

But most importantly I’ve discovered that if I take the time, to take no time, to just be in the moment and make decisions on what needs to be done now and follow that quiet feeling inside me that says that I should do … right now it all seems to work out. Leave my petty ego out of it and be content with whatever happens whether it’s others or my doing doesn’t matter. Instead of worrying I’m starting to have an attitude that something will happen, it’s just that I don’t know what it is. This is creating a new state of wonder, where I don’t know what is going to happen but like watching a film I’m curious and wonder what will evolve. Amazingly it’s working out different and much better than I could imagine.

Yes, what will come of the New Year. I wonder because I have no idea.

Lets find out…

Well this video is a re-cut of the Swidwin trip and is that very indulgence. I make no apologies for it and it’s here for all to see but is intended primarily for the four of us.

We had a wonderful day out not exactly having any idea what we would find, intending to stay the night and eventually deciding to travel back to Berlin. This is a recap of a fun day for the four of us.

Thanks ladies for being my companions on this trip. You make it a gazillion times more fun having you there.

• Thank you Eve for driving and the use of your car.
• Thank you Romy for the navigation and photography.
• Thank you Claudie for being my pillow and well… being the lovely Claudie

There are more videos of my time in Europia to come. That’s the great thing about having a blog.

Relationships, we want them but how do we do them?

In a previous post about how relationships collapse I suggest that we move onto new relationships in a way that is serial monogamy. I suggest that it’s necessary to realise that all relationships end and it’s the disappointment of that, based on the expectations that they last for ever, that causes the suffering.

My suggestion is to come to terms with the fact that it ends, enjoy it while it lasts, grieve when it ends, heal and then move on.

Another aspect is that within the Western view of marriage we expect our partner to be all things in every way for us. It’s natural, especially as when we connect and in the serotonin haze that is created in the first flush of meeting someone, we think they are perfect, the one, our soulmate. Then they change don’t they?

Maybe we change the way we view them!Either-way we find that they aren’t everything to us in all situations. So we become dissatisfied try to change them or compromise ourselves but we’re not satisfied.

Who said that the person you marry has to be your everything, especially in the intimate personal aspects of a relationship?

Oh sorry!

The system said that!

Well guess what the system is wrong. We all get things that are important to us from other people and places, physical, emotional, spiritual and sexual. We have friends that give us things that we don’t get from our partners and within a marriage it’s accepted that we can have these relationships to fulfill us and round us out as humans. Pragmatically we allow our partner to do things that we may not quite approve of because it’s seen as good for the relationship and based on power and survival needs of the family. As the dependence on the other changes through the constant change of the relationship then the barely tolerated behavior becomes a relationship threatening behavior and the slow slide to separation commences.

The conflict is not so much in the behavior itself but in the non acceptance of your partner needing to be this way as their form of human existence. To relate to someone you must accept them as they are. If you have an issue it is fine for you to communicate it to them, even to ask for them to change but it is 100% up to them to change and to do it happily with no compromise to themselves. If they can’t or won’t change you must accept it as it is, happily with no compromise to yourself. If this can’t be done there will be conflict. Either way it’s about acceptance either a new or the old dynamic. So now everyone is happy with each others behavior and all can live in bliss.

But what if I can’t resolve a behaviour by my partner?Simple, dissatisfaction unhappiness arguments all the usual stuff until it moves to separation or stagnation either way not much joy and fun. So get with it, acceptance is the only way to get it.

This isn’t my stuff you’ll find it scattered around many of the spiritual teachings especially Buddhism and within human relationship counselling.

What if I can’t personally give what they need from me? Accept it! If not then that means either conflict and ultimately separation or let them find it elsewhere and accept that new situation. Either way we’re back to acceptance.

In all relationships we get things from outside of the relationship so lets celebrate that and let our partners go forth and have those other fulfilling relationships in the knowledge that this is what is vital to them and that if we can be content with that there is contentment with both parties.

Back in May I was listening to Cameron Reillys’ G’Day World podcast which introduced to me the concept of Polyamore through the conversation he had with a couple travelling through the US.

As I heard about this term of Polyamore I realised that it seemed to be another expression of the serial monogamy but with the twist that there isn’t a requirement for the relationship to breakdown and that it can continue and any requirements that are need to be added to the relationship can be found outside to satisfy while staying in the relationship. Or that it is possible to have multiple relationships concurrently so as to ensure that all are satisfied and whole. The most important aspect is openness of desires and honesty with all parties.

Now this is not just about sex. We do have very deep intimate non sexual relationships with others that satisfy us and within a relationship we allow that and all is fine. The challenge is when we move it up to include all aspects of human behaviour including sex. That’s when it’s challenging for a lot of people as it’s fine to do somethings just not All Things, especially sex. But why not?

As seen before if we’re not satisfied there will be conflict within the relationship or within oneself.In what I’m saying here I admit that I’m making a generalisation and yes there are exceptions to what I’m saying but the vast majority of cases are closer to what I’m suggesting than to the Western Ideal that everyone aspires to.

In all of human history we haven’t been monogamous and we will go there anyway one day or be miserable, inside or outside of the relationship, why not face up to the certainty and happily allow our partner to satisfy that aspect of their humanity that is unfulfilled? Because it threatens us, that’s called jealousy, that’s why!

Ok, I accept that a lot of people can’t or won’t be able to do a Polyamourous relationship but to my way of thinking most of us are already doing it with other important aspects of our human relationships, we just have this sex, guilt, ownership control thing with our partners that has been perpetrated by church and state as a way of keeping us in some sort of control for reasons I don’t understand.

It’s all right if you disagree with me. You may be totally besotted by your partner and they with you and you see no need to entertain what I’m suggesting here. However if…?

Do you care for your partner so much that if they needed to have a relationship…A relationship to round them out as a person….Do they adore you and share with you and are you secure enough in yourself and your relationship to allow them to go and have the experience…Could you be happy for them knowing that they will always want you?

Or does that threaten you?

I so get this stuff! Once I found it had a name and I thought about my life and the way I’d interacted with people I realised that I have always been doing a variation on this. I’ve always been comfortable with the thought of my partner having relationships if that is important to her. That is why I always say I never do jealousy it just never threatens me if she wants to go and play.

The way I’ve been doing Poly has been more within monogamy and platonic(love without letting it move to sex, but if things were different??).

More to the point I love many people in my life, if they are male it is platonic, if they are female it’s platonic if either of us are in a relationship and that relationship isn’t poly. However if we are both single or poly then it’s on and with some of the wonderful women in my world I’m inclined to be sexual with them.

But this is where I like the difference between Polyamory and swinging as this isn’t just recreational sex this is about building real relationships based around affection, respect, honesty and love.

I see that as more honest to both my partner and myself. And the little bit that I’ve experienced I’ve found that the sex is outstanding as so many of the conditional attachments and assumptions of a monogamous relationship aren’t there so the loving is more genuine as we understand that we are whole people with others in our life and that if we genuinely love each other we will stay connected and if we don’t we will move on so we cherish the moments we have.

If you wish to understand more about true relationships the challenges and the joys as well as the concept of Polyamore listen to a great podcast at Polyamory Weekly.

To reiterate. This is not about sex but about loving human relationships that we all have all the time. It’s about open honest human communication with the people we care about. It’s about allowing and being allowed to live the true life that fullfills us and to share that life with the people that mean the most to us.

The difference is that it doesn’t exclude sex, that’s all!