Well the time has come to go again.....back to the homeland of Australia

The time has come to go and revisit my homeland Australia. After the amazing wave riding on the election and the first African american president has now been elected, I have to say, I hope that the world is in for a change... or for the USA at least :) What an experience to be apart of in the USA even the great Peggy Seeger wrote a song on this man, whilst I was in Boston she showed up at an intimate Obama Campaign music performance at Johnny D's.

Well the nights are now turning cold, however, my journey to the southern hemisphere will be greeted with the great Australian summer...I am actually interested to see how the drought has effected the farmers this year as water restictions are still on a high of stage 5 as all the water is being taken to the bigger cities. It leaves the agricultural industry in a pretty grim state, however, one hopes that the land shall be taken care of by landcare where thousands of volunteers plant trees to renourish the great open plains.

Australia, Farmers, Drought, Global Warming what are we doing?

I have been travelling now for the past two years and every now and again I feel a longing to be back in my homeland of Australia. I did go back for only two months in September last year and was shocked at how the effects of Global Warming and El Nino had impacted the land in the Golburn Valley district. My mother told me when I was there, and after researching further, that one farmer every four days was committing suicide across the state of Victoria due to the massive drought that has been happening for the past ten years. I was suprised, though not shocked that these statistics were being rarely documented on the media if not at all, so I set out to right my song Farmers For the Fair.

Dry Dusty Winds are blowin down Ky Valley way
No rains in winter, now the dry summer plagues
This winter is the worst that we have ever seen
Frosts that fraught the fruit trees and no seedlings appeared with ease

Who knows Us?
And who really cares?
Who knows US?
'Cause we are the Farmers for the Fair!

We're born to the tractor and the snowy gum trees
turning the top soil, before Autumn colours the leaves
Salt filled lakes absorb any water that we've seen
Crusty blocks of dirt reep havoc across the plains

Who know Us?
And who really cares?
Who knows Us?
'Cause we are just the Farmers for the Fair

We're fighting the people just to water save
It's taking its toll and now suicide reigns
Well a friend of mine who lives just two miles down the road
Has taken his life and left his kids and wife alone

Well now that's the hundredth farmer across the Victorian State
How many more before the Government awakes
No catchments being built because money is needed for war
Now we have seen our first Aussie soldier die bloody hell what for?

Who knows us?
Who really cares?
Who knows us?
'Cause we are just the Farmers for the Fair

Try another thousand no food to feed the kids
In all the small country towns and the cities that is
Well they started to import from overseas instead
But what about our lively hood that we were born and bread

From the great shearers and drovers that built this arid land
Well they will all be non existent nothing with an Aussie stamp

I performed at an environmentalist convention called Bioneers on the Bay in the New Bedford Theatre the other week and I have to say it was one of the most thorough conventions I have seen on how we are impacting this earth. Please take care of the land around you it is essential in our survival, open your eyes visit http://www.bioneers.com/ Thankyou :)

Journey into the Middle East

For the past two years I graced the mainland of one of the most inflencial areas right in the centre of the globe, that place is known as Israel. I was struck by such incredible diversity geographically ranging from luna landscapes in the south to lush forestry in the north. These plains have bared alot of bloodshed, birthed some of the most provocative thinkers and revelutionised social consciousness for the past 4-5000 years. Moving from place to place I found myself most at home in a small village outside of Jerusalem called Ein Karem. Such a magical valley, surrounded by the chanting prayers that sounded in the distance from the Russian monastery as church bells rang overhead in succession. I stood there feeling as though I had just come home. Jerusalem has an energy that is unlike anywhere else in the world, it is a feeling that is so profound whether you are religious or not it doesn't matter, all encompasing a spirit of a land that has sacraficed, flourished and maintained a massive influence over millions of people all around the world for many thousands of years. These beautiful Semite cultures, Arabic, Jewish and the influx of Jewish migrants from the diaspora has created such an amazing, abundant, rich, ecclectic melting pot of poeple that you find yourself on a daily basis enveloped with the tales of peoples life stories. As a musician and a wandering minstral I found this news the most appealing, the peoples story nothing is glossed by political propaganda, nothing is polished by radicals agendas, it is just real people telling how they viewed cirtain situations and what they experienced at a personable level. I found myself stripped... and touched on a very deep level. I realised that the media can be a danger and not so informative as well, as for a person to hear about an event from another land and try to understand that as a truth is not so positive for poeple living half a world away. This brings me to the point of where I wrote a new song called Half a World Away, it questions how many of us are aware of our individual actions influencing people half a world away. What can we do at an individual level in action to help?