These happy little vegemite faeries were looking in my window early ...about 5am. Took a while to focus on them but worth it when I did. I could see why they were waiting for me to get up. There was a fair bit of a mess in the kitchen where they had tried to get the vegemite jar open. I have to put it on tight as a little fattie faery is very fond of it and just goes berserk if left alone with the whole jar.Their wings hsd knocked a few bits and pieces about on the bench. They were sorry I guess, because after I got the lid off and they had a few spoonfuls, I turned round and the kitchen was all clean again.

And also there was a most beautiful bird singing in the tree outside...Think it was a Butcher Bird 

My husband and I put this in our local papers as a bit of a shit- stir when the NSW Health Dept. enacted the draconian ammendment of the Fluoridation Act, and used the stupidity of local councillors to ride roughshod over residents of the Mid North Coast of NSW Australia. Every major centre had in the recent past voted against Forced mass medication with Sodium Silicio Fluoride/ or Hydrofluorosilicic Acid ( such chemicals are used unrefined and industrial grade straight fromthe heavy industrial complexes of China and other countries.)

One local doctor in particular was most miffed , and waddled right up to my husband to give him a right serve at a council meeting. Brave man. My husband has been a Quadriplegic for 23 years and you could knock him over with a feather. But only physically. Mmentally and spiritually he is a giant! Unlike Mr bully Dr. Broom up the bottom... (some people do look like they have a broom stick lodged up you know where, when they walk, and they usually are jumped up self important right little turds).

Re Fluoridation We have had a big con done on us on this . Please in the interests of balance have a look at www.nofluoride.com or www.glenwalker.net or/and http://bruha.com/pfpc/ the last one is "Parents for Children poisened by Fluoridation"

A chubby Faery who came to Tea


I found this little bit chubby faery in my kitchen one evening. She was eyeing off the leftover peas, spuds and sweet potatoes. Knowing not to upset the gentry I whacked out a big plate of tucker and she dug right in. I slept like a log that night and the red bellied black snakes which live on our driveway did not bother me again. Also the red-backed spiders which make their homes on our verandah chairs seem to have disappeared.

So if this lady comes to your place with her knife and fork in hand I urge you to feed her up generously, smack on the butter (not margarine..its poison) and do it with goodwill.Ok

For the Wild Places

For the Wild Places.

The places where the faeries stroked the wildflowers
And hailed the rising sun in salutation.
The deep green hollows that chirruped and nestled
In the twilight gloom...
     Oh where are they?

Does the haze of evening sunset,
Stroke only red brick tiles?
When not so long ago its light
Was stroking faery hair and flower center.

I look around at all the building,
Going on...they call it “progression”.
I try to understand the rightness of it all,
But the voice within cries in the silence -
Cries for the lost cooling green,
Longs for the singing in the tall trees -
And yearns to feel the life around me...once again.

Does the flying light around me
Rejoice in my prescence anymore?
Welcoming me to the little island of green,
Letting the dew of light drop onto my face,
along with the face of all creation -
Letting the breath of truth be breathed into me,
and in to all creation.
Letting the flush of love warm my heart forever,
and warming all of creation.

And understanding...compassion...tolerance!
     What of these?

Let me walk down the road of yesterday,
Where I was embraced in knowledge,
and heard the voice of all creation.
Let me listen to the life in the dampness
As darkness descends.
Let me wander with the lights,
Down faery roads of love...
Into the greeness I will be absorbed.
What more could I want?

This is for the wild places; this prayer of mine.
This is for the faery life; this prayer of mine.
This is for the truth.
Therese Mackay  24/9/87

And who will I be

And who will I be...?
Was I the sun drenched; sun hungry child
who played in the endless summer?
Was I the same child who lay for hours in the cool evening grass
lost in the sky?
And was I the young girl who looked for love in all the wrong places,
in all the wrong ways?
And didn’t I spend a night in the magic world of faeryland once?

Am I the mother of two teenage girls who bop along
to the same bubblegum music that I did?
They thinking that I couldn’t possibly understand -
its just that I have trouble with noise, these days.
Am I the wife of 20 years - this year 1992
hard to believe and times were I didn’t think we’d make it?
Now I wonder what “Making it” really is?

Am I the woman who strives to find and serve the truth,
Seeing my fight as my responsibility of caring for earth
and all her children.
Sometimes its hard to pull the many ‘me’s’ into one - at other times
I am the One as I am now the creation I made in all my parts.

Sometimes I am as old and wise as the universe I live in.
Then other times I am so rattled and stressed
by the clamour around me, I let my truths fade into the background.

Therese Mackay           1992

The Gathering

The Gathering.
A stream of lights in midnight blue flows off my shoulders and flies true.
A ruby cloak over all, flies like wings so I don’t fall.
An emerald green is at my throat; its gleaming eye keeps me afloat.
My feet are pale as opal sheen; no one can know where I have been.

The faery mound on mountainside, is where I am bound this airy ride.
There stands the guardian rising free, a very special growing tree.

It’s gnarled and whorled of ancient age,
with leaves dark and light, of green delight.
Its boughs spread wide, twist and writhe, with birdsong and sparkled life.
With blues and greens and red and gold, a powdering of gems the branches hold.

Inside each gem faery children wait the call, of life and so they fall,
one by one from pod to womb, through life, to learn and then to tomb.
From tomb to spirit, more lessons learned, in heaven’s halls, a rest is earned.
From rest and peace, again to feel the plea, of the Faery Queen who seeds the tree...
...with gems of spirit, pods of child, of colours rich from forests wild.
There grows the fruit of love and joy, into each Faery girl, each Elven boy.

Each child is blessed by Faeries all, who bring the gift when they hear the call.
The gift ... a globe within a star, within the darkness from afar.
To touch the surface and for a time, inside a star and so to shine.
To feed their hand inside the shape, to feel the light make its escape.
To learn... light is life and by its needs, it gives and takes... is fed and feeds.

Then as they fall each child is offered the wisdom from the chalice proffered.
The learn to sup before they sip, the nectar deep from chalice lip.
The nectar tastes like honey diluted; Like peaches, like water of life ...all fruited
Upon one vine and turned into warm and amber liqueur wine.

Inside the chalice, a burnished glow, a measure of this to help the flow.
But of this sweetness drink no more than one, or dreams from moon
and dreams from sun will bloom too soon, and die before they have begun.

Each child pod learns the lesson needed, in times upon the tree that’s seeded...
“Take time each day to kneel and pray, for that time throw cares away.
  Look to the light for what you need, within the light you find the seed.
  Inside, outside, above, below. you find  what you need so you can grow.”

I climb the sacred growing tree and don a new cloak that’s just right for me.
First it’s small and new and as it grows, it gathers light and so it glows,
and tattered though it will become, I’ll bring it back where I came from.
then lay my cloak around the growing tree, to feed its roots and then fly free,
till again I hear the faery call, and lodge again in pod to fall
to find myself wrapped anew, in a cloak that’s small and bright and new.

To learn truth and feel compassion, are tools I need to begin to fashion
a stream of lights in midnight blue flowing off my shoulder to fly true.
To laugh with life, and show it kindness, the gift I take for my dying blindness
a ruby red cloak over all, flying like wings so I don’t fall.
To fail sometimes and still keep on trying, its own reward as I am dying,
an emerald green at my throat, a gleaming eye keeping me afloat.
To be brave and take a stand when evil takes the upper hand
with feet as pale as opal sheen, no one can know where I have been.

Always there will be the gathering free, of growing souls at the sacred tree.
As weary as the human grows, we all have a coloured cloak that glows.
Some glow not much at all, their ears blocked against the call.
Some hear but have not yet heard, the light around them that holds the word.
And few there are who light the way, from garbage dumps, and troubled day.
Their cloaks and gowns outshine the sun, one life we’ll go where they have gone.

Therese Mackay       June 12th 2001

Death of a School Friend

Death of a School Friend.
(my first love.)
Today I found out that ‘C’ was dead.
“He died from Aids related causes”
Whatever that is.
“He died last Christmas.”
How come I thought he was alive?
I thought I would know when he died.
“He was an architect and he died quickly”
I had to ask.
“ He designed a beautiful home for his parents
who still live in the country.”
And I used to think he looked like Dustin Hoffman.

I went to school with him in the 1960’s -
I hadn’t heard or seen from him since then -
(Why would I?)
We redirected a few street signs,
laughing hilariously one night
as we pointed the ‘Mulga’ street sign,
directly at what we thought was mulga...
Mum was not impressed,
“What if an ambulance had been needed?”
But we were sixteen!

We kissed, that night, only once,
walking home from a party.
After ages of dreaming that was it - the full extent.
I always remembered the intense anticipation of that one kiss,
it being more precious because...we were sixteen.
The next day at school we couldn’t look at each other...
My first real kiss... and school drifted away from me,
and I drifted away...

I always believed he would be alive,
living his life, as I was.
I took it for granted, as so much of my life
Why wouldn’t I?
Who dreams that their first love ever dies?

Therese Mackay   Dec 1990

Issues Concerning unpaid Carers

Issues Concerning Carers (relatives/friends as opposed to paid Carers)
All Governments are very big on ‘Mutual Obligation’ these days. Whilst to many this seems a clear cut issue, Government and community awareness must be raised on the issue of long term, and knowledge able neglect and abrogation of any Mutual Obligation or human rights to the hundreds on thousands of family carers in Australia.

This issue seems a complicated one to those who have never been involved in long term, full time care for an ill or otherwise disabled relative. To those of us on the “inside”, and that’s how it feels at times; it is a simple issue. The issue is that there are growing levels of Government Bureaucracy coming between us and the funding we are supposed to be receiving, so as to provide urgently needed respite, to help manage financially and to just begin to right the great injustice that is being done to all long term carers, by the system. That system consists of firstly Government bureaucrats, who are grossly ignorant, not because they have not been informed, but because of sloppiness, self interest, and the desire not to rock a very comfortable boat. Then we have a three tier system of  Government sponsered Carers Associations, National and State, Resource Centers, Respite Information Centers, and on. None of these achieve anything at all for the home based carer, and manage to eat up millions of our dollars, ensuring that although there is plenty of information out there, it never translates into anything useful. Also none of the above are accountable.

I urge you to keep reading, as it is vitally important that you come to as complete an understanding of the rightful anger and feeling of total betrayl, we Carers all share. A growing number of us are aware of what the problem is, whilst most have no idea of the depth of the rorting that is going on, and are just hoping that someone, someday, will help them. Most of us do not really have the time and mental energy to keep on tackling this issue. It is about time someone in Government, or hoping to be in Government, helped us hold up our banner of grievances, because to date, although all Partys have been contacted by many of us individually, they have all turned their faces away.



The Australian Federal and State Governments are denying carers basic human rights. Though they are generally considered “Welfare”, they would be the only people to be on active call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, year in and year out, over periods of decades. Carers are ‘a hospital of one’, but there is no superannuation, no sick leave, no weekend and certainly no holidays. There is no workers compensation for back injuries, or other health issues caused by long term caring for the loved one or loved ones in some cases. There is no Union. Many of us along with our role as Carer, are also Mothers of small children, wives, fathers, and have other responsibilities, which can be neglected through necessity, due to the role as principal carer.

The Federal Government provides funds for a bevy of ‘information services’ to advise carers about Respite, which does not exist, and services that are only there on paper. We have three levels of ‘information providers’; not one of which ever achieves anything practical for the Carer in the home – at the coalface.

Who are the Carers?
Carers are often disliked, distrusted, and dismissed by doctors, nurses, and others who come into contact with the loved one they are caring for. Generally this is because we are the ones who insist on adequate medical, humane and dignified treatment for our loved one. We ensure that society can keep its hands clean of the realities of disability, because we are generally eager and competent in our care for our loved one.

There are short term Carers, such as those who nurse and provide care for a few months, or a year. There are middle term Carers who may have a relative or close friend needing four or five years care. Then there are long term Carers who will care for ten, twenty, thirty years, and some for the rest of their life. There are also people who have full care for more than one person. Carers are the only people who work for any pension they may receive, be it a full pension or Domiciliarry Nursing Care Benefit (under $80 a fortnight). They work hours that leave most physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted. There is for most, no respite, no home care, no regular time off, unless they are able to pay for it themselves, which most cannot afford.

If and when they finally collapse, they can be treated dreadfully by others, especially official bodies, and made to feel as if it was all somehow their own fault, when in fact the reverse is true. Most Carers will endure levels of illness and discomfort and still manage to provide all the personal care needs of their loved one, keep the house going, do banking, groceries, and cope with whatever health crises that happen regularly with the one they are looking after.

The mental strain, isolation; desolation at their inability to be an autonomous individual, (a basic human right); back injuries and other illnesses such as flu; pneumonia; heart disease; or cancer, are often caused by the unrelieved stresses and relentless nature of their role. That and the lack of any suitable assistance from Government bodies charged with ensuring that the system looks after its people in real need.



1. What would you do, if you had to provide 24 hour a day, seven days a week, year in and out, care for your Husband, Wife, Child, Brother, Sister or Friend who was a High Need Disabled person?

1. If you cannot continue this level of care by yourself, the Government will pay, without question or hesitation, $100,000 per year to take over. (You were only paid $1352 per year – Domiciliary Nursing Care Benefit - for the same work.

1. If the Government take over, your loved one will not receive the same level of care and attention you can give. Their chance of recovery is reduced. They can suffer neglect, abuse and even sexual assault.

1. The government will provide a few hours a week of Home Services, if you are lucky. They will pay strangers $15 to $20 per hour. They will pay you only 16cents an hour. The Services provided are not always suitable.

1. Failure to maintain proper care will result in the death of the one you care for.

1. Duties include feeding, (naso gastric), and toilet functions – cleaning, incontinence – attending to all personal needs around the clock.

1. There is no Superannuation, Holiday Pay, Sick Leave, Overtime or Workers Compensation.

1. The work is onerous, exhausting and relentless, and delivers isolation by its nature.

1. The Government will allow you only 42 days off per year (not even one day a week), but you can only take this time if you can find someone who can stand in for you. How you pay them is your problem. Try working out the wages, at $18 per hour, 24 hours a day for a week, and see how easy it is to try and afford even minimal respite. At the minimum it will cost the Carer $2,324, just to pay for this care for the one week. Money still has to be found in that week for groceries for the paid Carer and your loved one, for yourself and for any travel or accommodation you might incur. For most it is financially impossible.

This is a serious abuse of Human Rights. Why can not the Government assist the Carers in their work? There are only a few people saving the “System” a huge amount of money. Legislation has been passed which has not been enacted. Why not? Ten patients at home saves $1million dollars per year. The Health System does not provide for long term care.

No Union would tolerate these conditions for one day.

1. Aquired brain injury can be caused by:-

Motor Accident… Heart Attack… Stroke… Sports Injury…
Electric Shock… Assault… and others.
The only hope is that your family can take you home to care for you. Sedation is commonplace if you are placed in a Nursing Home or Hospice. This will make your recovery highly unlikely.

1. The Nursing home will cost the Government some $2000 per week, to care for you. This will cost the Federal Government $ 100,000 per year.


2. If you family take you home, apart from any Pensions you may qualify for, the Government may pay the Domiciliary Care benefit to cover the cost of your care. This is 16 cents per hour. That is $26 per week. $1,352 per year.

Appendix 1. – Therese Mackay
How do you get proper Respite? My husband is self employed, working from the home, but also needing a lot of care. He is a C5/C6 Quadriplegic Complete, and has been since 1982. Respite in a hospital or ‘Home’ is inappropriate for someone like him. He works, uses his computer and is able to access so much himself about our home, because of how we have set it all up.

My Irish Type Mothe

My Irish - Type Mother

I lie inside my Mothers soul, and hers lies inside of me.
All through nine months, the heartbeat was heard.
And through our shared pain, my life became
Every breath I drew on. nurtured breast to mouth,
Held safe.

In years of falls, scabs, illnesses, learning to talk
And talk and laugh and sing and understand,
The tomes of things shown, learning compassion,
the Age of Reason, devilment, mimicry and satire,
Family, and keeping up with all of us -
all mainly from my Mother.

It would have seemed a dry old cold world without her.
It doesn't seem this way now she's gone on, because she showed the way to be -  - free - inside.

There don't seem to be many older people about,
Who've kept the child in their heart, but not become childish. This is wisdom. My Mother was very wise and laughed a lot over little things, over little people, and just when she told stories, her telling was with laughter.

I never will forget her laughter, and her way of twinkling. Not all the time, either as like many Irish, she had her own demons to contend with, and waves of sadness would sweep over her at times. Like they do with me at times. But hers appeared to possess her and she would disappear inside herself for weeks and become this tiny old sad lady, and the plea would be behind her eyes, to "Help Me! I don't want to be like this." This was really hard to bear, but as she'd say after the episodes were over, "What doesn't kill me makes me stronger."

She could really drain your energy when she was like this, and this became like a 'Catch 22' situation, because her need seemed so intense at the time as if she needed the extra strength to get through, and I didn't always have the strength to spare. She knew she did this and when okay she hated being like this.

But in the measure of her life all sixty five years, such a little percentage of her life was like this, so much so that in the balance it can be negated as being less relevant than the time the rest of us waste watching quiz shows, something she never did. TV held almost no attraction for her, It was turned on to watch a movie, and then off it went. No mindless dazedness just passing the whole night by three hundred and sixty five, in front of the hypnotic flicker of today's madness.

What dwells with me now is the cool damp feeling of her skin one day when I recall kissing her, just after she had come out of the shower. What stays with me is the smells of shampoo and soap, and clean. Sometimes, not all that often these days, but still sometimes I feel as if my heart is hurting, physically, and that it is being pulled open inside my chest, and for a little while I have a few tears, nothing unnatural, nothing I can't handle, because she left me knowing inside how to deal with these things.

The lessons, that weren't lessons sunk in. Nothing was by rote, no real hard and fast rules, just the way...the way to be. To do the right thing just because it was the right thing to do, no other reason.
Therese Mackay

The Sacred Dance

The Sacred Dance.


I write the words of the sacred dance
The rhythm of the Universe inside the spoken rhyme
In dream I danced with a smiling trickster,
Myself a man; myself a woman; myself, myself.
My eyes to my eyes, nose to nose (ha!),
Male and female both but two were there…
We danced the sacred dance
Upon a floor with no floor
In a room with no walls
Under a roof with no sky.
With no sound but the words of ancient rhyme
A deep, rich rhythm of the spoken Word…
The Word creating the sacred dance.

Colleridge wrote from a dream of Xanadu.
And woken by the Pastor’s knock…left incomplete
A secret source of truth. He dreamt and then forgot…
But at least he knew it was there.

He reads the sacred Word for my dream.
A Universe created within the Word
Did join our feet and hands and body,
In cross formation like the sacred Hindu cross;
We danced the sacred dance of complete and total stillness
A union.
Feet becoming one as we slowly turned about the room.
Bodies joined in sexual counterpoint,
Balance perfected still, and ages still, and ages still.
Inside the rhythm that saw no movement,
Felt no time or feeling…
Heard no sound but the thrumming of the spoken Word.

Our feet and hands outstretched like spokes,
Joined palm to palm, toe to toe,
The perfect rhythm of the Word our feet followed.
I thought…no thought.
Then I thought, “So perfect. So perfect. So perfect”
Unable to describe the hours long, as we became a universe
Of our own but not.

I thought too much and fear stepped in,
“What if I break the rhythm?” and with the thought
The rhythm was broken.
Unfinished, but undiminished,
There was the moment…ages long of perfection.
The dance slowly losing grace, the words slowing and disappearing.
Perfection disrupted by the very action of my thoughts.
To be inside perfection is completion.
To think; to limit; to fear; perfection crumbles into chaos..

The dream evaporates with a tolerant smile
Of understanding…
But evaporate it does
No blame from the trickster that was I -
Man and woman  - all myself.

Perfection cannot blame; nor criticise; nor fear; nor limit.
Not put upon us its own failings.
All these destroy the sacred rhythm
That binds the universe together.
Like the beating heart keeps the body from decay.

To some, much more is given.
Of them much more is expected.
I know how to wait!!!
For inside the night; inside the stillness; inside the dream,
The spoken rhythm remains, perfect in its beauty.
There is no tiring; no weakness; no age;
No heat nor cold; no needs of hunger and thirst;
No sweat; no yearning for completion as on earth.

I think I was in heaven for a moment…
In some Angelic waiting place.
No words describe perfection nor explain the unexplainable.
And left with joy, not loss
I sense again the plan unfolding that is too easily forgotten.
Understanding that the perfection of the rhythm of the dance
Is easily disrupted by my doubt and fear of limitation…
But only for the briefest flash of time.
That perhaps it is also part of the plan to have disruption,
For without the lesson learned, would I understand
Or would it be a dream forgotten?

A dream forgotten that once I danced in sacred halls,
A sacred dance, upon a sacred floor, without walls,
Nor roof, nor sound but the rhythm of the sacred word.
Therese Mackay 15/6/02