I shot this spider and the green bullet looking pouch (pictured below) with babies, over two days before they disappeared from my garden. That was a few days ago. It was a burst of life with small moving creatures on the dull sturdy orchid plant – a typical Queensland nature. The black ant should give you an idea of how tiny these babies were.
I’m not sure if the same spider (above) had all these babies. I tried to Google it. They (both the large and baby spiders), were on the same orchid. I think the baby spiders were eaten by birds before I went back, on the third day. The delay in posting on this blog was because I had to try to find the name of the spider and see if these babies came from it. I was also watching the Australian Tennis Championships in between the spider investigation. I still don’t have a clue. If anyone knows, please tell me.
My mother and I have been planting Kaukau or sweet potato cuttings. We hope, we will soon stop buying the good kaukau at Coles for $9 per kilogramme. The cheaper – $6 per kg kaukau, is tasteless, so we took the expensive one and tried to grow it.
It was natural to have kaukau on my mind when I painted my first watercolour this year. Women is Papua New Guinea, especially in the highlands, share kaukau cuttings and this is how they transport the leaves – in bilums. Sometimes they would be given the cuttings by friends and family members. Other times they bring the cuttings from the garden home to plant near their houses.
In fact, it weren’t for my mother being in Brisbane, I wouldn’t plant kaukau because it is too much work. The soil is too dry and if rain does grow the tuber; hare, possums, rats and who knows what else, eat the leaves. Often the animals dug for the tubers as well. This time we used bamboo stakes and placed a net around the garden. My mother was determined.
I had to give in to this planting, because my mother would not give up. And now, I’m glad I went along with her. We planted two species, one was our favourite Hawaiian kaukau from Coles. Another kaukau called wan mun (one month) was given to us by my friend Marina. That term wan mun meant literally in one month we would eat the tuber. That has not happened yet. I’m not surprised because the conditions here are tough.
We are still waiting for the one month kaukau to bear and it is now three months. The Hawaiian sweet potato is white skinned and purple inside. I chopped the tips off and grew them in a drum until the shoots were strong enough to transfer to the garden. It was a long process.
Unlike the women I had painted and their gardens, the kaukau in our garden seemed to take forever to grow. I remember growing it in the humid Lae (PNG) climate. Six months gone in Brisbane, and we now start to see the kaukau leaves spread and grow rapidly. I stuck my fingers under soil to see whether there were really any tubers – and there are. I was inspired to really bring these tubers to harvest. I will post some pictures here at harvest time. I don’t know when that is.
“We have to wait for a few more months”, my mother said. This was because, she said the hot summer and then hail storms last year killed off all the leaves and then the surviving tubers re-grew new shoots. We cut the stems and planted more. Now my son has this crazy idea we could build a larger garden to grow more. (I don’t think so...I muttered under my breath).
I hope you enjoy my watercolours and I will keep you posted on the sweet potatoes.
Some of you that are new to this blog may not know that I promote art, culture and heritage from Papua New Guinea, my country of origin and the Melanesian region. Music plays a large role in the Melanesian content that I promote. It was one of the reasons I started this blog two years ago. It is very important for me to continue to share and persevere in promoting as a way of safeguarding some of the Melanesian cultures, and I hope that you enjoy this journey with me, not only for its purpose, but the beautiful sounds.
The spectacular playing of stamping tubes by the ‘Are’are people is one of the twenty musical genres filmed by Hugo Zemp. This YouTube preview presents six short excerpts of a 2h20 long film in which each musical genre, one more beautiful than the other, is shown in length and commented by master musician ‘Irisipau. The 2-DVD set allows discovery and appreciation of the extraordinary richness of musical invention and polyphonic splendor of only 8000 ‘Are’are people living in the Solomon Islands, South-Western Pacific.
Happy New Year to all the readers of Tribalmystic blog. It is three years today that this blog, Tribalmystic Stories was born and I want to thank you all for following, participating and reading some of the stories. I have had a nice break, and I hope you have had the same. I’m looking forward to a new and interesting year ahead of us.
I wanted to begin 2017 with a tough shot I tried to take throughout the day today. It was not easy to photograph this mother and baby spider together; one on either side of the web and with the breeze flanking their gold web like a flag. Lucky for me, they did not move away from this super location (from the back veranda to the garden) and at various times, when I tried to take a better picture, both insects could not keep still. I hope you like the pictures.
There isn’t much to say except to watch this coffee table in order to understand why it would attract one of the highest amounts of money in the Kickstarter projects for 2016. Designer Bruce Shapiro’s table also made my list of “cool stuff” for the year.
Luke Dormehl writes, in ancient Greek mythology, the character of Sisyphus, king of Ephyra, is punished for his deceitfulness by being condemned to roll a boulder up a mountain for all eternity.
Jump forward a couple of millennia and creator Bruce Shapiro has used that story as his inspiration for one of the coolest Kickstarter projects we’ve ever seen: a table with an ever-changing automated tabletop pattern created from sand.
“Sisyphus is a kinetic sculpture in which a two-motor robot moves a magnet to pull a steel ball through a field of sand,” Shapiro told Digital Trends. “It can also be thought of as an instrument upon which paths are played. Like musical instruments, it is the combination of both the instrument and composition played upon it which produces the art.”
There are three sizes of table available, with prices starting at $795, and boasting a range of stunning wood veneer finishes. It’s created by Shapiro himself and a collective of fellow creators, called Nordeast Makers.
Read more on: Digital trends. See two other time lapse videos of the table on vimeo.
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I started something last Christmas when I showed a star of Christmasfrom my garden in Bellbowrie, Queensland, and surprisingly – I discovered yet another star recently. Like the previous bromeliad flower, I called this bloom a “star” because of its aesthetic features and perfect arrival, just before Christmas. This pineapple species reminded me of christmas lights. And, as bromeliads often do, it sat there flowerless for years and one day, it put out a fascinating flower.
This bromeliad has been growing for over three years, and I had no idea what its flower would look like. This star of Christmas is for you too, whether you are a Christian and celebrating this time of the year or not, it is a thank you from me to you for supporting and being part of the Tribalmystic blog family.
This Christmas is a special time for my sons and I. It is the first time since we moved to Brisbane that we enjoy the season with my 74-year-old mother, visiting from Papua New Guinea. While we celebrate the meaning of Christmas as christians, it is also a time we enjoy the love we share as a family. I am grateful to have had six months with my mother after a long time of separation. My mother moved away and eventually re-married when I was about nine and I grew up with my grandmother. We spent time in between the years that have flown by, but briefly and always with other members of our family. Despite this time apart, we still do a lot of things that we can together, such as, her composing her songs and singing them to me over the phone or sending me a bag she made with new designs.
My mother and I share similar interests, so in Bellbowrie, we have spent a lot of time in the garden planting, making art, telling stories and making music. We talk. There have been many, many stories. Sometimes she plays her flute or we sing and other times we enjoy the birds and the plants.
With filter.
And, it is from the garden that the star of Christmas bromeliad came from. My mother has not seen bromeliads before she arrived in Brisbane so she now understands that they look like the pineapple plant and her daughter is obsessed with the plant.
I wish all my readers, friends and family members, a very Happy Christmas and best wishes for 2017. I hope that you find what you love and enjoy your life as much as you can. Life is full of surprises, sometimes not all good ones. But, the good ones are hard to forget and they are the ones to hold onto.
Personally, while it had been a tough career year for me, I have had a few wins in other parts of my life and people I have met or worked with. As a parent I was moved by the number of friends and family members that came to celebrate and gave so much for two milestones in our family – Chris’ 18th and Nathan’s 21st birthdays. Nathan moved out from home and graduated with a Science Degree, and that is a big win for me. Being a family and having love is the most important thing for me. As I often say on this blog, nothing beats love and I wish you all the same for this festive period and beyond.
The Hibiscus is one of my favourite tropical flowers. I enjoy looking at their delicate silky petals which open graciously at day time and close tightly at night. The flowers remind me of women and especially my mother, with a strong confident character, that others often easily bruise without being aware. And when she (my mother) has closed herself, she is closed.
In the Pacific Islands, we love wearing the hibiscus for its beauty and many assorted colours. It’s bark is used as cloth (similar to mulberry bark Tapa is made from), and the flowers of the hibiscus can be eaten. The flower is slightly acidic and is made into tangy sweet jelly. Rosella jam is made from a type of hibiscus. Here is a recipe I found on Food.com.
I have two types of red hibiscus in my garden, one I have shown here before. Butterflies also love sleeping under the leaves. The same red hibiscus is positioned in the front of our house and after a recent dry spell that was softened by torrential rains – the one crazy weather after another bought and abundance of flowers. I ran down about 6pm two days ago and all the petals were closed. I forgot the flowers did that.
Here are some pictures of the flower, photographed (yesterday) wherever they had fallen, except for the ones I arranged in the group. I also photographed the flowers on our driveway, where car tyres had run over the dead flowers. I felt like making some art with the fallen flowers, so I hope you like them. This week, I will also post pictures of my new star of Christmas.
Some of you on this blog know I am deputy chair of the Papua New Guinea Literature Awards, The Crocodile Prize. This may explain the little time I have spent in writing here (for my own blog) in the past 12 months. The committee is at the end of judging for the finalists in 2016. Winners will be announced shortly. The Crocodile Prize Inc yesterday ran a free workshop to promote the craft of storytelling to Papua new Guineans. Here is the report from Chairman Emmanuel Peni.
Over thirty people attended the first Crocodile Prize story-crafting workshop in Port Moresby, yesterday. The participants were as young as 13 and as old as 65 consisting of writers, readers, enthusiasts and Crocodile Prize fans.
“They were hungry to learn. There was enthusiasm and passion and many participants raised insightful questions. It was a great energy for the future of Crocodile Prize and the competition itself”, Chairman Emmanuel Peni said.
The Writer’s Workshop was organized by the Papua New Guinea’s Crocodile Prize Association.
Mr Peni said the workshop drew passionate writers from different age groups, both sexes, cultures across PNG and industry people.
Character development, writing in scenes, understanding point of view (POV) and using the right language were important elements of story-telling discussed at the workshop. Presenters at the workshop included University of Papua New Guinea lecturers Mr Russell Soaba, Dr Anna Joskin and Mr McPolly Koima.
Crocodile Prize 2016 prize winners will be announced shortly. Please continue to watch this blog.
The Current Crocodile Prize Committee is looking for sponsors for 2017 and skilled Papua New Guineans to assist with the running of the association. Any international skills are also welcome. The association is entirely run by volunteers, so if you think you have help or expertise the association could use ; please write to crocprize@gmail.com or joycelinleahy@gmail.com
A father rethinks his professional life and his passion after his daughter is born. Moon Line is a project featuring Professional skier Mathieu Bijasson and focuses on his new outlook on life. With the arrival of his daughter and his new role as a father, Mathieu takes this passion and love for life and rethinks his approach to night freeskiing. Children always change us when we become parents.
Tribalmystic Stories 
