Trigger Point with banksia, fuchsia, magnolia, camellia and pine needles
Along with many other women who have escaped domestic abuse, I’m finding the current conversations around gender-based violence triggering. My own experience – which changed me forever – is a silent statistic, another measure of the vast abyss between what humanity with all its traditions, ideologies, and systems of governance promises, and what it delivers.
Over forty years since participating in my first protest ‘Reclaim the Night,’ to make nighttime streets safer for women, we are still running in circles, uttering those same platitudes – ‘enough is enough’, ‘this has to stop’, ‘men must step up’. All that has changed is we now have a few new labels such as ‘coercive control’, a few more safety enhancements such as lighting on paths through parks, and a few more laws to punish and incarcerate perpetrators.
Emergency meetings and talk of a Royal Commission just add to those gaseous emissions.
When it comes to violence against women, these are all simply band aid solutions covering a global disease.
After all, these calls and solutions come from the same male dominated system that created the problems in the first place. Fixing the whole issue of gender violence from the inside is akin to performing open heart surgery on oneself.
This isn’t just an Australian problem, it’s a human problem.
Consider not only regimes that oppress women through traditions and theologies that deny them equal accesses to education, jobs, and freedom of movement, but also the Nordic paradox, and the disproportionately higher levels of violence against women in the supposedly more progressive Scandinavian countries.
Consider the number of religions that, despite starting off with the best of intentions (love, peace, unity) have devolved to embrace misogyny.
We are a truly weird, hypocritical, paradoxical species.
So, for a better perspective, let me take you to outer space.
Once we have travelled past all the debris and satellites circling our planet, channel your inner alien and reflect on that reactive, invasive species below. Consider their investments in weapons of destruction, those stakeholders rubbing their hands as yet another war boosts the value of their weapons portfolio. Notice how war on this planet is big business. While violence feeds economies and egos, civilians, women and children are the collateral damage.
Consider one of the theories of the Fermi paradox that, the reason no extra-terrestrial life has made contact with humanity is that at a certain point, through environmental degradation, or careless use of advanced technology, civilisations self-destruct. That’s one theory of many – another being that humans are so brutal and unevolved that higher civilisations just can’t be bothered saying ‘Hi’.
Back to planet earth. And Australia, back to you. To repeat the words of the palpably furious criminologist Vincent Hurley on the recent Q@A episode on gender-based violence (addressed to the government representatives on the panel): ‘How Dare You?’
Yes, indeed. How dare you spend so much taxpayer money on giant, outrageously expensive masculine fripperies?
Yes, I’m speaking about AUKUS and all the surrounding propaganda regarding the ‘protection and defense’ of our sea lanes from China.
If there is a lesson to be learned from all this planetary gazing, it’s that serious, long-term change won’t come from protective, defensive posturing on individual or institutional scales.
Long-term change won’t come from investing in more jail time for perpetrators of domestic violence (although in the short term, that’s urgent and necessary) or in military machinery. Transformation won’t come from spending hundreds of billions of dollars on fleets of giant, testosterone-powered metal bandages.
Transformation for women (and correspondingly, the human race), will come from massive and long-term investment in quality education. Globally, change will come from dismantling the reactive forces that define humanity – a masculine preoccupation with war, rivalry and the desire for vengeance when things don’t go their way. In other words, the patriarchy.
And while we’re at it, let’s call that catch-phrase ‘positive’ masculinity what it really is – embracing feminine qualities of empathy, compassion and vulnerability.
Until the benefits of this investment in human education and intelligence bear fruit, the bandaging must come from far more support for front-line services that protect women.
Back to the Fermi paradox. And hope. Hope that it’s the patriarchy that self-destructs, without carrying off the whole planet in its wake.
Meanwhile, no more running in circles, please. I’m dizzy from all the spinning.
This story of Mother Earth’s battle with the patriarchy is currently propagating across cyberspace. Breaking out of boxes, bending prison bars and smashing glass ceilings, Men of Earth is now available from bookstores around the globe.
Below are direct links to retailers ( for the paperback – it’s also available in hardback and as an Ebook). Just press on the bookstore name for an intoxicating trip into a world of hope, pleasure and scandal.
And do shop around, because I noticed as I added these links, that prices vary dramatically.
Men of Earth is finally live and currently propagating across international distribution channels everywhere.
A work of fantastical and speculative fiction earthed in reality, it’s a story about how men treat women and the way women want to be treated. Men of Earth digs up a distant and forbidden past, realigns the present and conjures a future in which women hold the power. It’s about science and magic, unlocking long-forgotten secrets and how, wherever and whenever there is change, there are always strings attached. Unexpected strings. Dangerous strings. Strings with knots and tangles.
Here’s a list of links where you can purchase Men of Earth immediately.
Early in June, I was thrilled to receive this physical copy of my novel Men of Earth for final pre-publication revision. The cover reveal and final book are coming shortly, but meanwhile I’m delighted to flash the back cover along with some freshly trimmed ivy. Enlarge, and you may even be able to read the blurb!
I never thought about getting old when I was younger. That was something that happened to other people. It’s hard to imagine the unimaginable, but here many of us are, segueing into seniority.
When I was sixteen, my mother confessed to me (with a haunted look): ‘I realised I was getting old when I noticed men were no longer looking at me.’ My mum – a formidable, independent woman who was also gifted with more than her fair share of radiant looks – could, at times, come out with some real doozies. Built into that comment are so many uncomfortable truths – not only about the objectification of women and how our self-esteem is tied to the approval of men – but also enculturation and revulsion over that objectionable and incapacitated condition called old age.
Despite my mum’s occasional doozies, she was an impressive role model. Once she got over that shock of no longer being an object of men’s desires, she transformed into a formidable businesswoman and – well into her eighties – used to say defiantly: ‘I’m no little old lady!’ Indeed. Woe betide any tradesman who tried to diddle her, including the plumber who, after telling her the roof needed replacement, watched her climb his ladder, inspect the roof and then fire him for dishonesty. She was an incandescent example of age bringing the gifts of experience, confidence and authority.
The Age of Transformation
As women fade from being objects of desire, our invisibility offers up an opportunity for transformation. We can finally shed society’s tight-fitting, expectation-riddled clothes. Here is our chance to shapeshift, transition into our true selves and forge new connections with society, the world, nature, and the cosmos.
It’s time to boldly embrace our new bodies: those sags, shrinkages and swellings, those lines of wisdom, experience and beauty, those mood swings that echo the natural world, those bodily gasses and mental fogs that intermittently catch us off guard, those hairs that proliferate in some places and vanish in others, those backsides that defy all conventions of proportion and balance and migrate frontside, those radiant moments of insight and outrage, love, indignation, compassion and understanding. These changes are telling us: we are no longer beholden to our hormones, reproductive roles and societal expectations. Our inner goddesses are finally breaking free. We are transforming into powerful beings.
A friend once told me: ‘Men get more attractive as they get older.’ Yes. Well. Up to a point. To engage in further generalisations, women get more independent. They are less inclined, particularly after raising children and perhaps tolerating less than perfect marriages, to put up with the shenanigans of those purportedly more attractive males.
That’s another of Mother Nature’s finely tuned balancing acts.
They may be old and wrinkled, but they’ve still got light and rhythm.
Forces of Nature
Regardless of Mother Nature’s ultimate, mysterious agenda, we all – men and women – eventually succumb to invisibility.
Even apparently invincible, ugly, rude, murderous (and usually male) autocrats and despots, who use taxpayer’s funds and testosterone-infused prowess to foment paranoias, finance weaponry and wage pointless wars; those corporate narcissists and sociopaths (usually male) and their greedy cronies enriched through power games, conflict, planetary rape and ecocide, will eventually age, grow ill, turn feeble and die. We all return to the nature some have treated with contempt.
And, as anyone who has indulged in those clickbait sites that lead us past celebrity ‘Then and Now’ pictures on to advertisements for laxatives and weight loss powders, knows: even the most breathtakingly beautiful succumb to age’s implacable hand, blend into their surroundings, decompose and eventually turn invisible. There’s no escape for anyone. There’s some exquisite poetic justice in this knowledge. No one gets out of this business Instagram-pretty or alive. Mother Nature reclaims us all.
In all of this, there’s so much that’s wonderful about being older. By our fifties, sixties, seventies and beyond, we’ve seen and experienced a fair share of life’s cycles of absurdities, sorrows, injustices, insults, glories and inspirations. We’ve survived intoxicating and eviscerating love affairs, embarrassing moments, crushing moments and ecstatic moments. We’ve experienced life’s most ridiculous, infuriating, inspiring and heart-touching moments. Our reactions may be slower, but our reflections are deeper. We see life’s big picture in all its nutty, paradoxical and baffling beauty.
And, by the way, to have reached this grand age, navigated our way through life’s minefields, survived those ailments and accidents that rob some far too early of this adventure of existence, is a triumph.
As we move into that sublime realm of natural, poetic justice it’s also worth remembering that some of the greatest forces in nature are invisible to the naked eye: gravity, electromagnetism, radio waves, x-rays, dark matter. Love. So don’t believe all that sexist, ageist, propaganda. We are emerging from that chrysalis of invisibility as butterflies. This is our mature and magnificent prime.
We – the aged and aging – are glowing with an incandescent and invisible light.
Finally, here’s wonderful article shared by a dear and long-time friend (old, wise friends – another advantage of seniority). It’s got a few free articles before you hit the pay wall.
Consciously or unconsciously, positively or adversely, our parents influence our lifestyle decisions and career choices. And we don’t choose our parents, although those who believe in the journey of the soul say we do.
Regardless of what we believe, having a good father is a gift to treasure. Supportive, loving fathers give their children self-esteem, courage and purpose.
My father, John Banwell, a geophysicist who would be 113 today, encouraged my whimsical career choice, teaching me to appreciate the wonders of science as well as the power of magical thinking. We need creators, dreamers and visionaries as well as dissectors, realists, and rationalists in today’s world. Both veins of thought shape human civilization and the timeless words of Desiderata still ring so true: ‘Keep interested in your career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.’
This is what a good man looks like.
Although this beautiful, modest man would have run a mile from attention-seeking social media sites, I want to pay tribute to his wisdom, kindness and humility today on his birthday. Born in 1908, he died too soon, when I was 25.
My mother once called my father John Banwell a fathomless man of many talents. A geophysicist, piano player, eclectic reader and some-time kiwi fruit horticulturalist, he was as good at fixing locks, pruning trees and building stylish hutches for my numerous pet birds, rabbits and guinea pigs, as he was at pondering and unravelling the mysteries of the universe. He introduced me to science fiction when I was 12 and directed me to possible descriptions of alien visitations recorded in the Bible (Ezekiel 1- 4). He taught my brother and me to revere nature’s wondrous creations, including the terrifying-looking but completely harmless New Zealand weta, which we frequently came across in our wood piles.
Love the weta. It’s one of nature’s wonders.
Unruly Toddlers and Time Travel
I grew up in New Zealand surrounded by natural beauty, books, art, trees, exciting ideas and lively family conversations. I loved the measured way Dad read me bedtime stories. He had a beautiful voice – soothing and deep.
Sometimes his solutions to challenges – particularly regarding the matter of child care – were unusual. Such as the time when he tied my toddler brother to the rotary washing line so he could mow the lawn without interruption. My mother, when she came home from the shops, was furious. When she recounted that story, she introduced me to the German word: Fachidiot. That’s a highly specialized and qualified someone who trips over his own feet, spills wine over the hostess at social gatherings and forgets to put out the rubbish. Fachidiots are the kind of people who tie toddlers (Dad defended himself by explaining he did give Martin a few feet of rope so he could roam …) to washing lines.
Despite his approach to childcare which today might land him in a heap of trouble, Dad never shied away from my frequent impossible-to answer questions, those childhood ‘whys?’ When I asked him once if it would be possible to time travel, he simply said that perhaps one day, but it would take an extraordinary amount of energy.
Energy, of course, was his specialty. An advocate of clean, green energy way before it was a big thing, his work as a geophysicist took the family from Taupo – the steamy geothermal heart of New Zealand – to Mexico City and New York.
His favourite photo – at work, surrounded by geothermal steam in Wairakei, New Zealand.
Fiery Fumaroles
In Mexico, he once accompanied a group of fellow geophysicists to Los Humeros, a volcanically active area where they named the fumaroles after their daughters. So, somewhere in Mexico, there’s a fumarole (a hole in the earth emitting hot sulphurous gases) named Ingrid. Aside from the troublesome affiliation between females and fumaroles (I suspect this was Latino machismo at play), he always made me feel special. And he revered and adored my mother. She was as fiery as he was calm. As social as he was quiet.
My brother and I grew up in a loving family where our parents were different, but equal. When Dad’s work for the United Nations took us to New York City, I attended the United Nations International School – a place of myriad nationalities – all different but equal. What a wonderful school. What an astonishing, enriching experience. This was all thanks to a restless father never content with the nine-to-five business. He wanted to change the world through science. Make it a better, more peaceful and enlightened place. Science was not his job, but his calling.
Geophysicists at work – there’s nothing quite as scientific as a sniff test.
The Full Works
Calm and rational, he wasn’t one for outbursts, yet I’ll never forget the time he discovered I’d been smoking in my bedroom. Bristling over breakfast, the following morning he told me firmly, in a controlled geyser of fury, that he would not tolerate such a disgusting, unhealthy habit. His words stayed with me and I have never been a smoker.
Another day when I was fifteen and weeping over some boy, he told me I must always be independent. That’s another piece of wisdom that has stayed with me. His head ruled his heart and he taught me to do the same; to think before acting, consider different perspectives and independently investigate the truth.
He was a quiet man, but when he blew his nose, sparrows fled from the surrounding trees. At night, his snores shook the windows. He even looked like a scientist, with a magnificent head of unruly black, wavy curls that refused to obey the laws of physics. Until he needed a passport photo. Then, the scissors – attached to my mother – came out.
My mother tamed his unruly black curls for this passport photo.
When he left his job at the UN and we returned to New Zealand, he brought with him one of the very first computers – an extortionately expensive Hewlett Packard slightly larger than a typewriter. With a small blue screen, the size of a scotch finger, it grunted, beeped, squeaked and, when he fed it cash register rolls, spat out reams of squiggles that sent him into scientific raptures. My mother was one of the world’s first computer widows, neglected by a husband who spent hours in his office seduced by the siren call of that beguiling contraption.
With his frequently distracted, absent-minded air, he wasn’t someone prone to glib commentary or superficial social chit chat. If you asked him a question, you got the full, considered works in his reply.
He was also an enthusiastic demonstrator of nature’s powers, once introducing my brother and me to static electricity by sitting near a heater and vigorously stroking our cat’s fur before earthing him on the carpet. Despite the crackles, sparks and hisses, the cat always came back for more – those electric shocks a small price to pay for the warm lap and enthusiastic strokes of that gentle geophysicist.
A Real Man
John Banwell’s mind never stopped inquiring. In the days before he passed away from a sudden coronary thrombosis, he was conducting solar energy experiments in the family garden, using tin cans, wires, and a collection of other mysterious cobbled-together instruments, neatly recording the results in a notebook.
I remember always feeling encouraged. Respected. Loved. Never judged. He never, never, made me feel less for being female. I thought this was the way the world worked. But back in the nineteen seventies and eighties, as a young woman, I stepped into a very different landscape. After taking his paternal nourishment for granted, I entered a world where women were often looked down on, bullied, disrespected, exploited, oppressed, stalked, taunted and harassed. It was a rude shock.
Over forty years later, it seems astonishing that so little has changed. Navigating this world is still a challenge for many women.
So, I want to also pay tribute here to the fathers in the world who encourage their daughters to be self-respecting and independent, the men who set fine examples of manhood to their sons. Being a real man means being brave enough to be gentle and loving, open-minded, empathetic, respectful and encouraging. Being a real man means being a man like my father, John Banwell.
Thank you, Dad, for all your love and all your gifts. Happy 113th Birthday.
Thank you for those precious 25 years. I couldn’t have wished for, or dreamed of, a more perfect father. Your love, warmth and encouragement remain an inner fortress lit by a never-ending glow. You were and always will be, a treasure.
Recently, a man I personally know is a serial abuser of women posted a picture of himself on Instagram holding a sign that proclaimed his support for gender equality.
Tempted to write ‘hilarious’ in the comments section, I decided instead to take a more nuanced approach. I chose – as many women do after going through experiences of abuse – to not identify him. For one thing, being on the pointy end of his wrath would not be pretty.
For another, (and a part of me attributes this to the same gullibility that sucks people into these fabulists’ worlds in the first place) I think, or hope, he might have changed. It’s doubtful. The rational side of me is well aware the creature in that Instagram post is one shaped by the observer. What we see is a mirror in which our own desires are reflected back at us. Dig deeper and we find – like the quantum physicist researching the subatomic realm – something that makes no sense and is mostly empty space.
Fishing and Fairy Tales
Social media is of course, a pretender’s paradise. It’s a fabulous place for fabulists to pay lip service to the zeitgeist, hop on the bandwagon and wave that bright banner of solidarity. And dating apps brimming with an infinite supply of women looking for the fairy tale are all perfect fishing spots for liars, fakers and other predators to reel in their victims with the heroic, affluent and successful masculinity narrative.
After finishing Fake – Stephanie Woods’ beautifully written, candid and well researched book about narcissistic sociopaths and after watching the recent slew of news stories about abuse of women in Australian parliament – I’m experiencing a nauseating whiff of familiarity. This has all happened before.
Actually no, you don’t.
I come from a generation that grew up accepting harassment as part of the whole business of being a woman in a male-dominated world. What I see, sadly, is that over the past forty years, not much has changed. These days, abusers with a bit of guile still know how to say the right things to succeed in business or politics, get laid, or prove their previous girlfriend was a psycho. And those platitude-flashers – often no more feminist than I am a fruit bat – use this current national conversation around women’s rights to varnish their social media profiles.
The Bigger Picture
So why are we still falling for this garbage? And why are an alarming number of men still behaving this way?
In this world where we don’t know what to believe anymore, part of the problem with those false masculinity narratives is guidance from the top, from the supposed example-setters. Just as with those feminist platitude-flashers, it’s easy for politicians to pay lip service to social and ideological movements, to say the right words and appear to be doing the right things.
As Barbara Ehrenreich in her splendid book Living with a Wild God says (attributed to monotheistic religions but no less relevant to patriarchal governance): we conflate authority with benevolence, and hierarchy with justice.
I’m convinced nothing will change until we transform the bigger picture. We need to utterly change the way we do business. And I mean radical change – a complete upheaval of the current power paradigm.
That’s because women are still fighting a losing battle in an overwhelmingly masculine system of competition and conquest. We still live in a world where compassion and a moral core are encumbrances standing in the way of power and profit. For millennia humanity has been all bent out of shape by this disconnection with nature and disrespect for our deeper, gentler, wiser, selves.
Misogyny Land
An American friend recently commented that Australia – particularly compared with its smaller more progressive neighbour New Zealand – seems to be a particularly misogynist nation. Indeed. Just look how Australia treated Julia Gillard, our first and only female Prime Minister. Oh, the shame. I would add that pathological lying, derailing and undermining– common strategies of the narcissistic sociopath and social media faker – are also common practices in our parliamentary system. Just like those online fabulists, so many men in governance lie, dodge, slither and procrastinate inside that fossilized fossil-fueled, testosterone-fest that is the boxing ring of politics.
What example is such a culture setting for a younger generation of men? And who profits from this current system? It sure isn’t women. And certainly not Mother Nature. Despite, for instance, science and logic (thank you, sexist Aristotle) being an essentially masculine construct, many global political and business leaders are still turning their backs on the science of climate change because it doesn’t suit their agendas or their ideologies of power.
Lessons from a Pandemic
Globally, climate change and toxic manhood are intertwined. There’s a link between Australia’s poor record in dealing with the climate crisis and its treatment of women. Our government is still behaving – on a collective level – like that Instagram platitude-flasher and those fraudsters outed in Fake.
Our system lacks a moral core. Our system lacks femininity.
Surely what Covid19 has laid bare is we need to live on this planet differently. Surely the obvious message of a pandemic that evolved from our disregard for wildlife and the environment and so fatally spread because of the willful negligence of certain men in power (I’m pointing at you, President of Brazil Jair ‘it’s just a little flu’ Bolsonaro) is that our current habits and mindsets are unsustainable.
Shaping the Narrative
So, once more, it all comes back to women. Men need to see their wives, sisters, daughters and mothers standing up for themselves, using the right language, being kind and supportive to those who sincerely believe in equal rights. We need less corralling and conquering of nature (and women) and more cooperation and respect. We must all regard femininity not as a handicap, but as a power. We must encourage the good men in our lives to regard their gentleness and sensitivity not as a weakness but a strength.
Finally, a social media picture may tell a thousand lies, but used effectively, social media is also a power tool. So, let’s take the hedge trimmer of gender equality to those sprouting weeds of hypocrisy, change the narratives and shape our world into something more curvaceous and feminine. As a closet optimist, I like to think we’re gradually getting there, but I suspect it will be a lot slower than some of us would like. Shapely and mature topiary takes time. In the meantime, brace yourselves for a great deal more lip service.
With the painful and necessary conversations Australia is currently having around sexual politics, International Women’s Day feels like a good day to post this cover painting for my latest book: ‘Men of Earth.’
The rebellious offspring of the Handmaid’s Tale and the Stepford Wives, it’s a story about how men treat women and how women want to be treated. Of course, being a work of fiction, it’s not a diatribe, but a metaphysical thriller with a hefty dose of reality.
Thank you to my first test readers – your feedback has been wonderful.
Just a bit more editing and final readability tests before it’s ready to be seen…
As far as the writer and philosopher John Berger is concerned, animals are household gods. How could any pet lover disagree?
I wrote this reflection on the misgivings and metaphysics of pedigree pet ownership after it dawned on me that I was indeed our cat’s humble servant.
A household god? Me?
My apologies for ignoring the dog. One day he will get his own two thousand words.
Confessions of a Cat Custodian
When the cat pram arrived – a loud, bright-red affair complete with coffee-cup holder – I cringed. ‘The neighbours will think we’re crazy,’ I muttered as my then twenty-one-year-old daughter gleefully unpacked and assembled that outrageously indulgent pet accessory.
The pram topped other cat paraphernalia Francesca purchased over the years – a bumblebee suit, a hat in the shape of a shark’s fin, a mermaid tail, a pink lace dress. Miso – our indoor Birman cat – hated them all.
As I watched, I cursed those predatory online stores that enticed gullible people with cheap, colourful crap. I should have been a firmer parent, but now, it was too late. By this point, Francesca had a job and her own income. It occurred to me not only had I failed to educate my daughter about money management, I was enabling animal abuse.
‘He’s going to love it,’ Francesca cooed as she squeezed Miso into a harness that matched the colour of his eyes.
I sighed, knowing she wanted to show him off. Miso is a very good-looking cat. He has long silky white hair with chocolate-tips on his ears, legs, face and tail. He has white paws – as if he’s wearing ankle socks. Topping all this off, are eyes the iridescent, mystical blue of a distant galaxy. Birmans – the Sacred Cats of Burma – are thought to have originated in the temples of Burma and are accorded special treatment as they are believed to be reincarnations of Burmese priests.
While Miso does have an air of the divine about him, he can also look as if he is plotting to kill you. And there were times – like the pram debacle – when I didn’t blame him.
This household god may be plotting to kill you.
My eyes watered as Miso finally settled into that pram with the resigned air of one of those meditating Burmese priests. This was animal indulgence carried a step too far. Humanity – and my family in particular – had lost its grip on reality.
It turns out, however, when it comes to going loopy over our pets, the Japanese are masters. Pushing one’s pet around in a pram is de rigueur for Japanese urbanites, as is dressing them up in designer outfits, giving them expensive grooms and gourmet food. Considered family members, pets’ well-being is enshrined in a Japanese law which recognises the special status of any animal homed by humans. Thanks to beliefs that go back to folklore and Shintoism the Japanese believe animals (in particular companion animals) inhabit the same spiritual plane as humans.
As I watched Francesca depart with Miso like a handmaiden serving some god in his gleaming chariot (no way was I going with her – this was her personal crazy), I wondered: How had this happened? When did we transform pets into such overbred, luxury lifestyle accessories?
I grew up with semi-feral cats – unvaccinated, unneutered creatures – that mated rowdily and reproduced prolifically in our sprawling suburban garden. In our woodshed, I watched a cat give birth. This was before the feline parvovirus vaccine, when many kittens died of what we called back then ‘cat fever’. The cats that survived were tough, independent, flea-ridden, and snarky. My parents had an unspoken respect for our pets’ animal wildness. At a certain point, Mother Nature ran her course. When my father placed my favourite kitten Sylvia – erased too soon from the book of life by that virus – on a pyre of burning garden rubbish, I watched in frozen sorrow as she transmuted into smoke, flames and ashes. Pets were part of my induction into the unfathomable mysteries of the natural world.
With Australian laws now requiring owners to neuter and register our pets, over the years I have witnessed pet ownership metamorphose into something more akin to over-protective parenting. Along with a plea from the breeder to keep him indoors at all times, Miso arrived in our home with registration papers, a pedigree certificate listing parents with exotic, dreamy names and a detailed family tree that put Ancestry.com to shame. Having no say in his individual rights, he was also microchipped.
Thirty years ago, I would have regarded all this as absurd extravagance. Yet according to an Animal Medicines Australia study, last year, Australian households spent 13 billion on pet-related products and services. And somewhere in those figures are the costs of special scientifically-concocted foods for hairy indoor cats, catnip mice, tunnels, feather-duster toys and prams for cats like Miso.
An hour after Francesca set off to cruise our Sydney neighborhood with Miso, she returned, her eyes radiant. Passers-by stopped and swooned, she told me. They took photos to post on Instagram and Facebook. Our cat was now a local celebrity.
The Dysfunctional Cat
I confess, I had hoped Francesca’s outing would serve up a lukewarm dish of natural justice. Or result in a smite from Mother Nature’s cosmic light sabre. Perhaps Miso might express his disgust by scratching her with his syringe-sharp claws or defaecating in his pram. Instead, it was one of my reaping what you sow moments. I had, after all, started off this chocolate-tipped snowball-roll by owning an exotically handsome cat. In purchasing and incarcerating Miso, I had contributed to the whole inbreeding and anthropomorphism debacles animal welfare organisations like PETA and the RSPCA loathe.
This wasn’t even my first crime against feline nature. Once, I had been a prison-guard for cats that had never felt the wind’s breath tease their whiskers or munched on a blade of grass. When I lived in New York, I regularly cat-sat, looking after a variety of neurotic, cantankerous, calculating and dysfunctional cats who were as complex as their New York owners. In one apartment, I was given a water pistol and told to fire when the cat tried to wake me up at dawn by knocking over everything on the bedside table. The owners of a pathologically shy cat warned me that if I had visitors, the cat would vengefully defecate in the middle of the living room carpet while I slept. I did have visitors and, as promised, the cat deployed. All those cats lived indoors. Some – like their owners – regularly visited psychiatrists.
Warily, I watched Francesca unhitch Miso from the pram. Was he traumatised by this outing? Were we denying Miso the freedom to be his wild animal self? Had he enjoyed this outing or would we soon be paying a small fortune for a pet psychiatrist?
Miso, free from his restraints, strolled into a pool of sunlit carpet, stretched, and preened. ‘See? He’s happy,’ Francesca said. ‘He had a wonderful time.’
‘He’s relieved to be home,’ I snapped.
I would not be complicit in any form of animal abuse. I wanted to ensure Miso was happy going on these walks.
‘Next time, I want to go with you,’ I announced.
We set off the next day with our pet-on-wheels. Miso leaned forward, his front paw dangling from the pram as if he were a playboy in his convertible.
Reincarnated Burmese priest and wildlife killer.
It occurred to me all he needed to look completely cool was a pair of kitty sunglasses. I said nothing.
Half-way up the street, our neighbour Janet was trimming her front hedge. Janet detests cats. Wildlife killers, she calls them.
Janet’s gaze dropped to Miso in his pram.
My insides squirmed. ‘We’re crazy cat people,’ I explained.
Janet sneered. ‘If I see you at the shops with that…’ She pointed her clippers at cat and pram. ‘…I’m going to pretend I don’t know you.’
‘I’ll wave at you,’ I replied, avoiding her irradiating gaze.
I could almost hear her thoughts as we walked away. Oh, you shallow morons! Paying good money for a killer! Treating it like a baby! What are you? The cat’s slaves?
The Anthropomorphic Cat
My insides a maelstrom of defiant shame, I wondered if I was not only a bad parent, but a bad pet-parent. It occurred to me that while we raise our children to be independent, our pets remain dependent until the day they die. If humanity suddenly vanished, wildlife would return and thrive but pure-bred, incarcerated Miso wouldn’t even know how to nudge open the toilet lid to get a drink. Miso – who had only hunted the occasional cockroach or fly rendered sluggish by insecticide – would die of thirst and starve.
Amidst these inner flagellations, I kept my eye glued to Miso for signs of cat misery. I saw the treetops and sky reflected in his gemstone eyes. His nose twitched as the wind ruffled through his whiskers. His ears rotated towards the bird songs.
My thoughts see-sawed as we walked. At least, like those Japanese animal-loving Buddhists, we respected living things. At least we weren’t like the Ancient Egyptians who bred orange cats to sacrifice to Ra – their sun god. Humankind had moved on since those superstitiously ignorant times. My daughter, my cat and I were inhabitants of a more sophisticated, informed and scientifically savvy era.
Across the road, an elderly man gawped. Then again, was our cat a sacrifice to the gods of excessive consumption, gene-tinkering and ridiculous cat fashion?
was our cat a sacrifice to the gods of excessive consumption, gene-tinkering and ridiculous cat fashion?
The wind rippled through Miso’s fur. He looked radiant and dashing – the perfect picture for a kitty calendar.
The perfect candidate for a kitty calendar
Wild or tame? Couldn’t Miso be both?
I decided then we were responsible custodians of a purpose-bred, superior cat. The Japanese – with their animal spirits – worshipped and respected their pets. Miso represented progress.
I took a deep breath and held my head high as we turned towards the main road.
A passing car tooted. Another car slowed. The driver stared, ignoring the pedestrian crossing ahead. In my mind’s eye, I saw a headline: Cat in Red Pram causes Fatal Traffic Accident.
The Paradox of Miso
By the time we arrived at our local square I was harbouring a new set of doubts. We were idiots. We were infantilising an animal whose wild ancestors once roamed the mountains, plains and forests. Plus, we were a threat to road safety.
A delighted squeal shattered my plummeting thoughts. A group of women ogled Miso.
‘Oooh! How cute!’
And so, it began. We chatted to doting strangers. A toddler sang Miso a song. A friendly dog inspected him. When a grim-looking couple – the woman in a wheelchair – saw Miso, their eyes lit up. Laughing, they gave him strokes and cuddles.
Through all this, Miso – our reincarnated Burmese priest – maintained an air of gracious and accepting calm.
Pondering the healing power of animals, re-setting my wobbling moral compass, we sat at an outdoor table at our local cafe.
When the food came, Miso eyed the bacon on my Eggs Benedict and the yoghurt on Francesca’s blueberry pancakes. In a moment of collapsed resistance, I gave him a sliver of bacon. Francesca took my cue and offered him some yoghurt.
Assailed by another stab of darkness, glimpsing this ridiculous scene from a distance, I considered how I had sunk another level down the anthropomorphism wellhole. At the very least, explosive cat diarrhea would be my punishment.
Just as swiftly, my qualms evaporated. Gazing into Miso’s fathomless galaxy eyes, past and future compressed into a singularity of spacetime. This child who had lost pets from car accidents, poisonings and infections was now a woman sitting with her own daughter at a café with a vaccinated, parasite-protected cat happily dining in a red pram. And, a year from now, Francesca – studying animal law and feeding the stray cats on her university campus – would volunteer at a Peruvian wildlife refuge on the edge of the Amazon rainforest.
In that Zen moment of calm, with rashers of bacon digesting in my stomach, I embraced the paradox of Miso.
The paradox
Looking at our harnessed, pram-bound pet contentedly licking yoghurt off his lips, I decided he was the luckiest cat in the world.
On our way home, Francesca took Miso out of his pram. After a stroll on his lead, after rolling in a patch of sunlight, he settled onto a seat under some frangipanis and star jasmine.
Paws crossed, his fur spread about him like a celestial robe, I saw the world’s secrets embroidered into his eyes.
He looked mysterious. Wise. Like Buddha under the Bodhi tree.
‘He’s having fun,’ I confessed.
After regarding me with a triumphant smile, Francesca photographed Miso and posted his portrait on Instagram.
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A few weeks ago, I visited a place in Canada called Lynn Canyon. A short bus ride from Vancouver, it’s a popular tourist spot with a suspension bridge, hiking trails, waterfalls and swimming holes surrounded by temperate rainforest.
Lynn Canyon is full of signs warning people not to jump into the inviting water pools in the chasms below.
Clearly these signs are written for hot summer tourists with impulse management issues. Yet, surrounded by all that fragrant forest beauty, one sign made me pause for thought.
‘Your fear is smarter than you.’
In a world of short concentration spans, I appreciate we are guided by such simple aphorisms, but I longed to argue with the writer of that sign.
Because sometimes I have found fear is an obstacle.
Sometimes your fear is dumber than you.
And perhaps the most insidious fear of all is fear of the unknown. Fear of the unknown can lead to insularity, superstition and prejudice. It can shut down our brains.
For millennia, fear of the unknown, along with its Siamese twin ignorance, have been exploited by clergies, governments and tyrants to oppress people, isolate entire communities and countries and justify all kinds of heinous crimes.
So how do we counter this very human tendency to retreat from things we don’t understand? How do we fight that fear than can swamp our bodies and brains when we encounter something new, confronting and different?
Reading is a good start. Information is a slayer of ignorance. So, incidentally is fiction. A good story with empathetic characters in challenging situations can capture profound truths about the human condition.
Acts of courage regularly triumph over fear. We just don’t read about these quietly heroic deeds very often because most of us, including yours truly, are addicted to our regular fixes of drama, bad news and scandal.
In the stories below, names and details in have been changed to protect the identities of the protagonists. Except where they don’t.
A MAGICAL TEACUP
The world may be broken but thank goodness for the superglue of compassion, common sense and courage.
It was mid-morning in an office in Tehran, and Aminda – a temporary employee contracted to do some book keeping – had been invited to join the other workers for morning tea. In the office kitchen, everyone took a cup from the selection in the cupboard above the sink. Aminda chose a teacup with an attractive floral design. As she pulled the cup from the cupboard a colleague gave the teacup a dark look and vigorously shook his head. ‘You shouldn’t take that one,’ he advised. ‘Return it to the cupboard.’ When she looked perplexed, he leaned in and whispered between his teeth. ‘That cup belongs to Husayn.’ He gestured through the door to a man sitting at his desk working. ‘He’s a Bahá’i.’
Aminda, who, unbeknownst to her colleague, also happened to be a Bahá’i, smiled graciously. ‘In that case she said, ‘I really want this cup. It’s a very nice one and will do just fine.’
After I heard this, similar stories of idiocy, superstition and hostility towards disciples of this benign faith followed. A young woman told me the story of her Muslim grandmother who separately washed the cups and plates of her daughter’s Bahá’i guests.
In Iranian towns, villages and city streets, people wiped down public phones after they had been used by Bahá’is. Insults were written on doors of Bahá’is and their windows were smashed. Rather than risk physical contact, a teacher poked his Bahá’i students with the eraser end of his pencil.
A café proprietor openly smashed the cups of Bahá’is to placate his Muslim customers. There’s far more – the list is long and astonishing. I have met people fired from their jobs and children expelled from school for being Bahá’i. In Iran, Bahá’is can’t go to university. These are not the worst stories. Bahá’is have been imprisoned and killed for following a faith that believes in unity and peace. And this is still going on today.
Many have fled Iran to escape the persecution. Some have ended up in Australia where I have had the pleasure and privilege of meeting them.
The Bahá’i friends I have are some of the most wise, gracious, peaceful, forgiving and dignified people I have ever met. They understand much of this hostility in their home country comes from ignorance fed by fear. They carry many devastating memories with courage and even sometimes, humour. They miss their families and friends –both Muslims and Bahá’i – but they daren’t go back to Iran while the current government is in power. Yet they bear their oppressors no ill will even though the rumours spread by the government about the Bahá’is are so preposterous they belong in the dark ages.
I will say no more. It makes me too angry. There is no way I would have been able to face all those superstitions with such peace, wisdom and fortitude.
Once a beloved family pet, Flor the Saki monkey was handed over to RAREC in exchange for a pair of shoes, so a little girl could walk to school.
In May of 2018, a young Australian woman on a university exchange in Canada searched for ways to fill her summer break. She didn’t want to come home to the Southern Hemisphere. She had a whole world she longed to explore. The challenge was: how to do this all on a budget? As a foreign student, she wasn’t allowed to take on paid work and she wanted to travel.
She decided on a trip to South America but was concerned at the prospect of travelling on her own. Despite asking her friends, she couldn’t find a suitable willing or available travel companion.
Then, one day, a post popped up on her Facebook feed. It was a call for volunteers to help at an animal conservation and refuge centre deep in the heart of Peru on the edge of the Amazon rainforest. Accommodation and meals would be provided in exchange for helping with the management and running of the refuge. The travel cost was cheap. She would be met at Iquitos airport by a member of the centre.
When her mother – back in Australia – heard about her planned trip, a maternal meltdown ensued. Fear reared its ugly head. All the potential pitfalls of travelling to what sounded like the middle of nowhere consumed this mother’s brain. So many things could go wrong! Disease, kidnapping, assault, pythons, deadly spiders, man-eating fish, travel disasters – the list was endless. And was this Facebook post a scam?
‘Don’t go!’ said her mother. ‘It’s far too dangerous!’
Steadfastness is a close cousin of courage and sometimes, particularly where a parent-child relationship is concerned – this can be construed as stubbornness.
The young woman wasn’t backing down. This was an exciting opportunity and she was going.
Meanwhile, the mother – trying to master her rising fears – did some comprehensive googling. The organisation seemed legitimate. But still. Peru? South America with all that male machismo, poverty and political unrest? The Australian government’s Smartraveller website confirmed her worst fears. ‘Exercise a high degree of caution,’ it warned, listing the numerous and terrifying catastrophes of previous travellers.
Still the young woman dug in her heels. She was going. She would be fine. She would be sensible.
More maternal conniptions followed and continued, via Facebook messenger – all the way to Peru – where the young woman was met – as promised – by the owner of the rescue centre. From here she was driven into the depths of Peru to have one of the most transformative experiences of her life.
For two weeks her fretting mother woke to videos and photos of her deliriously happy daughter cuddling orphaned baby monkeys, gathering food for manatees and going for jungle walks with a tame ocelot.
And then, came the finale to this story, the other lesson learned, and the reason why having children is also such a life-transforming experience.
After another day of monkey-hugging and ocelot-schmoozing, mother and daughter spoke over the refuge’s surprisingly good internet connection.
‘Mum,’ she said. ‘I ’m so glad that I didn’t follow your advice.’
The mother was me and that brave, determined young woman was my daughter.
I am now an exuberant supporter and follower of RAREC (Rainforest Awareness Rescue Education Centre). I am so touched by their courage and perseverance. The work they do is truly visionary. They understand that to promote animal conservation in an environment plagued by poverty and sometimes ignorance they must educate and offer locals alterative, sustainable ways of making a living. They lobby. They work with the police to try and stop animal poaching – endemic in an area inhabited by so many beautiful, exotic animals. They stand against corporations plundering the rainforest and decimating habitats for profit. It’s a hard job and they constantly need donations and volunteers.
Here’s the link to this amazing organisation. Please help them in whatever way you can. They are doing so much for the animals and our planet.
Thank you, RAREC for not only looking after but also inspiring my daughter. And thank you also for all the wonderful, selfless work you are undertaking to save those beautiful animals.
Hopefully one day, thanks to the kindness, hard work and courage of people who want to protect the planet and help human civilisation progress, instead of followers of beautiful religions and instead of endangered animals, it will be fear and ignorance facing extinction.
Meanwhile no matter how hot it gets, I won’t be jumping into any canyons.
