Saturday, July 11, 2009

The Three Sisters...


The "Three Sisters", Echo Point, Katoomba, The Blue Mountains, NSW

The Three Sisters - The Legend
The Aboriginal dream-time legend has it that three sisters, 'Meehni', 'Wimlah' and Gunnedoo' lived in the Jamison Valley as members of the Katoomba tribe. These beautiful young ladies had fallen in love with three brothers from the Nepean tribe, yet tribal law forbade them to marry. The brothers were not happy to accept this law and so decided to use force to capture the three sisters causing a major tribal battle. As the lives of the three sisters were seriously in danger, a witchdoctor from the Katoomba tribe took it upon himself to turn the three sisters into stone to protect them from any harm. While he had intended to reverse the spell when the battle was over, the witchdoctor himself was killed. As only he could reverse the spell to return the ladies to their former beauty, the sisters remain in their magnificent rock formation as a reminder of this battle for generations to come.

Why are the Blue Mountains... blue?
The Blue Mountains is densely populated by oil bearing Eucalyptus trees. The atmosphere is filled with finely dispersed droplets of oil, which, in combination with dust particles and water vapour, scatter short-wave length rays of light which are predominantly blue in colour.


5 comments:

Greg said...

Hi Jeff, Nice to hear from you. Are you still in Sydney? Are you still in your course?
Went to Rockland yesterday and had lunch with Marcy and Lise (aka Toots and Deedee). Then we and Mem and Pep and William walked the breakwater to the lighthouse (which was open to the public).
My new vet starts this week...
Take care, Greg

Unknown said...

What an interesting story. Are looking forward to coming back home?

Unknown said...

Great picture of you!!

Jeff said...

Hello all...

I've been severely off-track with my blogging of late. (Only two (2) posts in June... what's up with that, huh?)

I blame work and winter for the slow-down... I would tell you how hard I've been working and how cold the winter is here, but I know I won't get any sympathy from this crowd. It's hard to believe, but I could almost see my own breath when I was in the Blue Mountains the other day! Yes, it was that cold :-)

I'm looking forward to being back in the States. I fly back on Friday, July 31st at 5:30 am and land in San Francisco at 11:20 am. That's less than 6 hours... Yeah! (Unless you consider the 11-hour time difference, then it's a 17-hour trip! :-( )

I've had a wonderful time in Australia and I'm looking forward to boring you in person with more stories and photos.

* * * *

Speaking of stories...

The scarf I'm wearing in the lastest blog photo was woven by a local artisan in Sydney. She displays her art at a local Saturday morning street market at The Rocks. I asked her if she had ever done any 'shibori weaving'. (Weaving 'pulling threads' in the overall design, which you pull to create a pattern in the cloth during the dyeing process.) She said she had not but hoped one day to weave shibori in the manner of Catharine Ellis. Catharine is an accomplished U.S. designer and well-known among weavers for her shibori technique.

I told her I knew Catharine and that I had spent a couple of weeks at an Arts & Crafts School (Haystack on Deer Isle) in Maine, where we shared adjoining workshops. I got to witness on a daily basis, dozens of beautiful shibori patterns being created by her and her students.

Needless to say, the local weaver was visibly envious! And I sported a smug grin all afternoon. :-)

Hey, it's a small world...

JP

One Wass said...

Hi Jeff,
What an experience that must have been---climbing the bridge! Not sure I could do it. Is it worse than Knife's Edge?
We look forward to seeing you sometime soon and hearing about your adventures in person.
Have a safe trip home.
Love, Marcy (aka "Toots")