Monthly Archives: August 2021

I love wildlife, especially birds. I love watching the little robin in my parents backyard come and feed. I love the sound the birds make early in the morning. My daughter was getting to an age ideal for having a pet, and I settled on getting a pet budgerie. I wanted a blue one. I went to the pet store and was given strict instructions on how to clean the cage and keep a happy bird. My daughter named it ‘love heart’ and it made the most beautiful chirping sound.

The girls played around the budgie cage in our kitchen, it was a beautiful scene. They were fascinated, communicating about the bird, even when my youngest, being two at the time was just starting to speak.

Disaster struct pretty quickly however, when, after a week of being in the home the budgie fell to the bottom of the cage and writhed around for fifteen minutes. It then stopped moving and I knew that it had died. I didn’t want the girls to see the distressing sight. So I picked up the bird, who felt lovely and soft to touch , placed it in my best Tupperware container and put it in the wheelie bin.

The girls came home and Belinda squealed when she saw the empty cage, ‘mum the birdie.’ I replied by telling her the bird had flown away when I was cleaning the cage. She became quite philosophical replying that this was probably better if the bird was free. I was sorry the bird died and sad I lied to Belinda. I wish it had flown away. It was distressing to see it at the bottom of the cage.

It made me think of my own mortality. That we don’t know when or where we will die. I’m hoping it will be when I’m old with family around me. But that often doesn’t happen. Covid has made me sad with stories where loved ones have been separated. I’ve always believed in the soul, where it goes who knows, but maybe like the bird it actually flys away to another life, and it’s just the body that remains. Maybe it’s just an analogy, but maybe it’s closer to the truth than I realised so not a lie after all. It was my husband who suggested we tell them that. Bye bye love heart, fly safe..

Icons in Greek simply means ‘image’ and the painted Icon on a flat wooden panel, that we are familiar with today, has its origins in the Byzantine Empire. Icons are used today to focus worshippers prayers on a particular saint or subject.

The Byzantine Empire was the eastern Greek speaking half of the Roman Empire. While the last Roman Emperor was deposited in AD 476, the Byzantine Empire continued until 1453. What we think of as the Eastern Orthodox Church was created largely within the Byzantine Empire and the generations of icons is part of its legacy. This legacy is a symbolic proclamation of the power of images.

Some groups in the church strongly disapproved of the promotion of art. In response Pope Gregory the Greta, around AD 600, defended imagery as useful for teaching the Christian message to the illiterate and helping the faithful towards the contemplation of God.

And it is this education that underpins my love of art. An image can speak 1000 words, the same way a caricature, or a photograph can challenge, mock, ask questions or capture a moment in history. This is why we protect, promote and produce the image, in whatever form it comes. Art I believe is not just for the illiterate. I can read ten pages and the words depicts nothing but useless babble, yet a piece of art can capture a sentiment, an emotion, a thought. I believe art is a higher way of communication,

Having homeschooled my seven year old now since the beginning of lockdown I’m certainly thankful for the iPad. Some Sydney Catholic schools have embraced iPad technology to aid in their children’s learning. One such school is St Thomas in the Southwestern Suburbs where the school is located in a low socioeconomic community, representing 50 different languages. 73% of pupils are from non – English speaking backgrounds. During the pandemic last year and this year they have turned to the iPad to flourish against all odds.

Michelle McKinnon, principle of St Therese Catholic primary school states ‘ it gives students the freedom to explore and express their ideas that makes the best sense to them. That could be in writing, as an audio report, via a video presentation, or even an animation they create themselves.’

I’m a fan of the ePM Reader collection, an online library full of books at different levels which is interactive, the students can press on a word they don’t know and it is read to them. My daughter is currently making videos of herself making lego that she sends to her cousins in the UK. Not only is she communicating with her cousin but she is learning about different ways we can express our ideas, and she is learning to take her own video footage.

McKinnon continues ‘I’ve been in classrooms for 30 years – a tool is only as good as the teacher using it, so professional development for our teachers was also critical to any change we sought.’ With parents acting as teachers we have all had to learn a few new skills as we try and impart knowledge to our little ones. I struggled at the beginning trying to assess the stage my daughter was at, we got there in the end and I’m relieved when she shows an interest in tech, and is using it to her advantage.

A new exhibition is on at the National Library of Australia, Canberra, from Saturday 14th August to Sunday 14th November, 9am to 5pm daily. Entry is free. The Exhibition will travel to the South Australian Museum in 2022.

The exhibition looks at the life of George French Angas and his works. He was a painter, a naturalist, poet and explorer, and the Museum holds many examples of his work in its collection. The exhibition is presented in partnership with the South Australian Museum, and features works from national and state cultural institutions, as well as private collections.

Angas was 21 when he came to the Antipodes, and is a child of the colonial enterprise. It is said that his meticulous and sensitive portfolio transports us to the moment of his encounters with its people and landscapes.