[linnie]

I forgot to mention my Rattle...

It is a compilation of bits from the Australia desert 20 years ago, and then from the Australian desert 2 years ago.

On a road trip with my family in the mid 90s I collected some Boab pods. When I felt moved to make a rattle, and was thinking of a small gourd, I suddenly remembered the Boab pods of decades earlier, and tracked one down.

I was wondering what to use to create the Rattle's voice, and remembered reading that indigenous peoples from many countries used the sandy quartz grains that ants jettison from their mounds.

I was at an beautiful singing event (Big Sig in the Desert) an hour or so out of Alice Springs in central Australia where I was completely blissed out at the amazing time we were sharing, and I felt like a few minutes alone to just breathe in the wonder of it all, and sat myself down in a dry river bed. In that moment I saw ants walking to and fro their mound, and looked more carefully, thinking "how amazing it would be to find tiny quartz pebbles for my Rattle.." Sure enough, once i peered intently enough, I saw literally hundreds of suitably sized quartz grains/pebbles, and used my fingers as tweezers, to pluck the tiny things from the ground. I counted a good number of them, and pocketed them with much gratitude.

The Boab pod, my beautiful Big Sing-imprinted pebbles, some very soft, fine leather lace as a wrap, and a tiny Superb Fairy Wren feather, that arrived almost in my lap just as the Rattle was being created, and my rattle was complete. I use it the same way I use my flute, and all aspects of it make me smile and bring back very special memories :)