Sydney

Sydney – the easy peesy city. Lovely weather, beautiful cafes, warm people. Big houses, huge backyards, pools birds, turkeys, green in all shades and lots of spider webs, intricately woven spreading themselves claiming the space in the full knowing that they are safe.

If there is one city which leaves you alone and lets you be its Sydney. It doesn’t impose, it doesn’t want you to bend or mould or adapt. There is water everywhere, creeks, rivers, oceans. It reminds you of the expansiveness the stillness and that no matter how many times the waves crash the ocean is there to absorb it all. It reminds you that even though things keep changing here in the manmade world, there is solidity, predictability, rootedness, rawness, earthiness and just being ness in the world of nature. It grounds you and gives you the space to plant your feet firmly on the ground and look around and claim the stability that was always yours to have.

The breathtakingly beautiful spots across the city Manly, Tania Park or an hour plus drive away the beach that sparkles like diamonds Jarvis Bay are some of the most non touristy places you will ever see. No big blingy hotels, no snazzy 5-star luxury, no commercialization to exploit the beauty at display.  Instead, there is such complete and wholesome love for the abundant beauty it has been allowed to blossom and be and remain true to its nature by not being meddled with. Pristine, the way it is, it was and will remain, as was the intention of the maker. 

Sydney’s most iconic trees the gum tree also known as the Eucalypts are evergreens and have leaves all year. These are also known as ‘hard-leaved' or 'sclerophylls', trees. The leaves are thick, leathery, and tough, and do not easily wilt. These trees are hard to kill as underneath the bark lie thousands of dormant buds. These buds are a remarkable adaptation, letting the tree rapidly regrow after bushfires, severe insect and animal grazing, storms, droughts, or floods. Hardy trees, they will stand strong and see it all through.

The city is built on sandstone. Sandstones indicative of high energy environments and represents ancient stream, deltaic, or beach deposits. It has healing properties as it treats wounds and broken bones. It improves water retention and assists in the restoration of degenerative eyesight, weak fingernails, and thinning hair. Sandstones contain a lot of silica and giving rise to neutral or slightly acid soils, where the pH can be as low as 3.5.

The hardiness of the gum and the healing and neutrality of the sand creates a base and a space that allows for balance and steadfastness that doesn’t get disrupted or untethered by any form of extremities that creation might expose it too.

Down and under it is but strongly anchored and rooted it is a reminder that while change is a constant, durability, permanence, immutability and steadfastness are traits that are deeply embedded in the process of creation, and it is only in finding the right balance the process of evolution blossoms.