“We call things into being long before we realise what we have invited.” Some people will say I’m strange for noticing this — but lately I’ve been unsettled by how many walk the streets carrying death and darkness on their skin. Skulls grinning from shoulders. Demons curled along arms. Faces twisted in torment inked into chests and backs. They remind me of some very bad heavy acid trips I had when I freaked out way back in the early 1970's.

ALT: a yellow cartoon character pointing at his reflection in the mirror

Written two decades after the Flotillas of Hope voyage — a small act on a wide sea that still echoes today. The Bucket and the Sea They call it a bucket list now — a catalogue of things to consume before death. Mountains to be conquered, rivers to be cruised, skydives to prove we were here. It sounds brave until you see the queues — climbers waiting their turn to summit Everest like shoppers at a checkout.

A departure from my usual posts — this one takes the form of myth, an inner journey written as an allegory. I offer it as a companion to my ongoing stories. He was called Stavros, which means Cross, and that was his burden — and his path. One day, in a time that was no time, he heard the silent summons.

I keep reading about experienced sailors dying close to shore. Not in the middle of the Pacific, not after months at sea — but within sight of land. And each time, something stirs uneasily inside me. Because I once sailed four thousand kilometres there and back to Nauru. And I had no experience. None. No yachtmaster’s ticket, no decades at the helm.

In continuing my Star Gazing reflections, I turn again to the sky — not for prediction, but for pattern. As I’ve written before, Star Gazing lives in the space between astronomy and astrology. I look up at the stars, at the old light from Alpha Centauri or a pulse of sunlight just eight minutes old, and I wonder: Why am I here?

Six takeaways from the March for Australia and why it should be a wake-up call.