Christmas Day in the 'Tanic Gardens

Some of the C “Sacred Australia” Group, together with some of the friends of “David’s House” gathered with me and my two daughters (Hannah and Helen) at the Botanic Gardens for a late Christmas Lunch. Here is the gathered community (minus Ted who went walkabout)[and remember to click 2 or 3 times on each image if you want a close up shot]:

And here is Ken telling us all how the gathering was like a true Bush Christmas where all would sit in the shade of a tree in the 42 degree heat sharing stories about their lives and times, with the sounds of a nearby creek gurgling away in the background. Here in the shade of this wonderful tree in the gardens we were aware of the gurgling – as Ken pointed out to us – of the very first stream used to water the crops at Farm Cove. In this picture, Ian, Shayne, George and Johannes are spellbound by Ken’s narrative style:

Here is daughter Helen about to climb the fantastic contorted tree with Rose’s Darcy soon to follow her into its dizzy heights:

And here are Helen with big sister Hannah who is engaging in conversation with Ian who has all kinds of great plans to extend and deepen his creative writing skills at UTS; Hannah was sharing her experience of creative writing courses at Macquarie:

All the Christmas mangoes have now been eaten and there is an air of satisfied lassitude descending on the gathered picknickers:

That is until our peerless Thomas ( the Tank Engine) got up to give us Scottish renditions of rousing poetry and political speeches….


As the afternoon wore on we became every more deeply engaged in matters religious and sacred; in fact we were becoming the living embodiment of an afternoon of Sacred Australia, especially as Johannes told us something of his life-journey. Here are Ken and Ralph absorbing some of this powerful Christmas atmosphere:

Here finally is Rose catching son Darcy on camera as he makes his way towards the Queensland bottle tree. He was such fun to have around, especially for Helen who needed someone to chase across the Gardens!

Thank you all who came, making this such a memorable Christmas Day afternoon. We will all remember it!
Cheers
Michael