Listening to the Moon

 

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Story 1 - Listening to the Moon

Keira fell silent. “I, I can’t do this. They hate me. They’ll hate me more.”
The music teacher looked at the trembling teen. He could say how jealous they were. He could say just ignore them. He could say, maybe next time or the next.
No. There was only this time and all the rest was waiting to become real.
 

 

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Heard all the Stories

The music teacher smiled but Keira took a step back from him. She’d heard all the words before. Knew the routines, the dialogues, all of the plenty deadlies.
She knew what he was trying to do. He mixed it all up, all the words and all the phrases from all the students he’d taught over the years. It was the Illawarra after all, and tides of immigration had delivered people from all over the world to work it out together in this strip of paradise between sea and escarpment.
Keira knew it all, as all teens do. She was named after a sacred mountain after all. She knew the traditional Wadi Wadi story behind the lonely girl that had turned into that mountain. That’s just how she felt right now.
Her feet stuck in the ground, her hands tangled in vines and her heart withdrawn into the soft, warm, safe darkness of her hidden self.
A stuttering breath crept from her mouth as she followed her teacher’s lead on crawling out of the fear. Frightened words formed in the air as she focused on the first steps. Narrowing her focus to only the face of her teacher, she saw also the faces of her brothers, her father, uncles and all the others who rose into her mind to coax her back from the edge of darkness.
“I’ll try ...”
Keira shook her head as she spoke and the teacher winked and nodded. A cautious smile crinkled the corners of her mouth as she recognised that she was shaking and not nodding her head. Keira started nodding, bringing her body into line with her intention.
He gave her his knowing look and she winked back at him.
He began to speak and her voice, timid at first, slowly joined his. “Breathe out, breathe in. The tide rises, it falls. The sun rises and sets. Breathe out, breathe in.”
Going through her warm-ups now, a soft silent sigh of relief for them both. For all the hours, the tears, the screams and the “I can’t do this!” Now she was about to.
He watched Keira check through her body postures that said no, or stupid, or run away and then smiled again as she changed them to ok, yes and let’s do this. Keira lifted her head and dropped her chin as she straightened her shoulders and stood taller. She closed her eyes and breathed OK to him. He stepped back giving her more space to fill, then another as she opened her eyes and he saw the glitter of excitement flickering like firelight on a moonless night.

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Moonless Night

He’d taken her and her family on walks beside Lake Illawarra, encouraging her to see everything, listen to everything, the music of the world. They’d walked the beach at North ’Gong and she’d learnt to hear the difference between waves as the tide came in and as it went out. Everything breathed in its own way and Keira had learnt hers. They did exercises in the park. Some Taiji, some yoga, some this, some that. All the things he’d learnt from many different people of the Warra.
He remembered how he’d gathered with her family for a picnic near the Lake mouth. How he’d asked them all to sit in silence and listen to the Moon rise.
Listen to the world, as another world came into view.
Listen to the Mistress of the tides of human emotion and of a woman’s secret shores.
 

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Learning to Listen

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Story 2 - Into the Keeping of Stones: 1

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Desolate History

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