Something stirred in the back of my mind yesterday. Far off and faint like the first thump of a helicopter’s coming. It’s coming slowly, coming nearer, louder, sharper. Small desperate cries faint beneath the thumping. My mind tells me, grasp on to it. See, listen; while the other part of my mind tells me to turn away and not to see. To flee the picture which forces its way into my mind. What was it I saw – the Dome of the Rock, the Western Wall, the hills surrounding the city – a memorial garden? The warmth, the laughter, the heat – people, loud voices. Turning inwards - their cries. Such pain, such appalling pain, a vast sea of faces - a swarm gathering – there is no escaping their fate. Silence in a desolation in so vast a barren landscape . Even the innocent will die. Each footstep I took was upon parched white bones. Is this the agonising path they must tread? How quickly the dead become just bones. There was no pity within me - only desolation and tears. My soul cried out – “do not do this” yet my words remained unheard as they echoed and echoed around me. Even now I ask myself “Why”? “Why”? “Why”? … and then it faded within seconds into the dark cloying mist of memory …only the memory of it is left - - replaying again and again, like a clop from a film I’d never wanted to see.

The images remain vivid and warm in my mind. I’ve stopped briefly in my work and thought about the vision which is now blurred and softened. I find myself lost in thought at the most odd times during the day. There are notes I want to make and reminders to jot down. I’ve written down most of what occurred, described it as best I can, yet ...

The words familiar in away carried a sadness and a longing broken by long sighing phrases and by catched sobs and seemed to speak of the saddest things in life, want and fear, death and love, early death and painful partings. I knew what the words were, although I didn’t understand fully - the words were part of the rhythm of life itself - even now their sad and lonely tune remains with me.

I’ve tried to make sense of the things I’ve seen - the cup given to me which I held warmly in my hands not knowing nor understanding, confused. Staring into its depths, seeing nothing, understanding little of the words by which I was surrounded. The sip, a warm salty taste. I felt a burning warmth, rising, pulsing within my body and my body filled with heat. Held for a moment it flowed strongly within. A mingling - the blood ran out of me, dripped from me, to puddle beneath my feet and then to seep outwards, inching endlessly across the land. I was no less frightened, yet it my fear I was filled with a great love - the love cast out my fear. I stood watching the scene before me, yet I knew I was not dying. I felt a presence beside me but I could not see nor do I know who it was. It was not threatening. Yet in some way I felt that whoever stood beside me, also had the slow, strong sweep of blood in his veins and that in some way the blood flows in all our veins and has flowed there all our lives.

It doesn’t make sense. What did I see. Nothing just the cup - a dark (stone?) goblet - which I cupped in my hands. The land beneath my feet was dry, not dusty- just an expanse - the voices spoke in a language that I did not understand yet I seemingly understood their rhythm and meaning.

Another vision - concerning Israel - how can I describe what was portrayed to me? A lone man standing where the table use to be, the wall destroyed, sand. There was nothing left but this one man. His face was hidden from me. On his back he carried a great burden (or was it a shadow of some burden?). A great eagle appeared that seemed to be a part of the man (or was the man a part of the eagle?) A golden bird, beautiful - huge - wings outstretched - soaring - it disappeared. I called out to it, don’t leave me here - take me with you - it didn’t hear my voice - my voice was a mere whisper, an echoing whisper in the land - like the wind through sand. I wanted to climb onto its back, to fly with it, to feel the freedom it offered, to soar high and feel the wind in my face and be surrounded by the warmth of its great feathers but it wasn’t aware of my existence. A great feeling of sadness swept over me as I turned to look at the burning, blistering desolate land - I knew I would have to cross it - that there would be no sanctuary from the pain that it offered. Each step was an agony - each tear drop offered was the blood of those who had died, even the tree of life had withered and the golden cup laid battered and empty as I was empty. I gathered up the withered roots and the battered cup and as I walked these things became a part of me. And what of the end? There was no end - no end to the pain and the suffering and the agony ... only emptiness ...

There is want in the world and I know little of it. There is too much darkness and death, disease and war and evil. Yes, very much evil. There is fear and danger all around us yet I am blessed with peace and plenty. This is a peaceful haven and I know if for what it is. Events of the wider world remain remote and the troubles that abound seemingly a distant soft murmur that impinge on consciousness. I turn my eyes to the flickering television screen and I watch knowing so well the storm that yet lies ahead. I sense upheaval, a disturbance in the air. Terrible events continue to proceed along their ordained course. I feel the rolling, churning, chaos forever moving forward. Pictures spin through my mind, impossible to comprehend in their frenzied snatches. My own beliefs are as old as fear itself and my beliefs are not easily altered, nor easily abandoned. The central fact of the pictures is extraordinary but I have come to accept the extraordinary with the same facile assent of the dreary commonplace.

The words I write from the images seen of what is and what may be are scattered with their glories and of the terror of mankind. Who among us is mighty enough to forestall such destruction in the coming century? The world will continue turning and the affairs of men continue apace, there will be more violence, armies in movement, people once again moving across borders. If man knew what looms before him would he change? No, I doubt it – man will learn in the most painful of ways – for our future is a blessing and a curse. Our lives will be changed and events will gallop forever onwards and a great many changes will come to pass. Perhaps it is better than mankind does not know what lies ahead for when they fully know the truth man will carry it for a long, long time. But I know as I have always known. We imagine we see the world as it is. What we see is the world we imagine. We do not see the world as it is and men as they truly are.

Australia sits like a rock in the sea, the terrors will wash these shores but will recede and the rock will remain unchanged. I know that wisdom will be given when wisdom is required, courage when courage is required, and life when life is required. All things will be given. Never will our sons fight better or with more courage. It is they and their blood that will make this land secure again. I am not bereft of hope. Hope is there is my heart.

America like Europe remains deeply shadowed and dark, twisted and burnt, surrounded by swirling forces that cannot be contained. Europe will continue to lie within a welter of confusion. There are those will vie for position and power and who will be filled with ambition and greed. They will seek to snatch what they can from the times of confusion. Alliances will change with the wind; loyalties will ebb and flow with the tide. The eagle remains wings scorched and screaming – so many dead, dying … they will be pierced with arrows before they draw their own swords. Do they not hear the things internally and externally whispered on the winds of time? Will they continue to remain aloof and unconcerned with squabbles in distant lands because they believe it will not affect them? They cavort in the twilight believing that they are invincible and that the seasons will continue to come and go. Ruin will proceed from this

Only the eternal stars will ever remain, glittering hard and fast in the dark skies. We will learn the truth of all things, to one day explore those distant stars. How I wish I could travel the craft that will ferry mankind into the universes beyond this one. When our sun explodes in a billion years hence wiping this earth from the heavens the distant stars will remain, unchanged, carrying the future seed of man.

Nothing stops the onslaught of images across my mind’s eye. Their never ending furore has become a part of normal life to nullify elements of the present. To become purely a memory, gone until the future, unimportant to the present, eventuates. I accepted years ago that the pictures will always be with me, affecting the path of my life in one form or another. I cannot cut myself loose from them. There are times when I feel that they are my only reality and that life itself is a dream. Waiting, I isolate their wielding imagery, superimposed over reality filled with detail that shifts across the escarpments of life.

I’ve glimpsed other circumstances and conditions in our lives that don’t yet exist. Walked on air, flown to the stars, glimpsed other worlds, drifted through infinity - they can be an endless journey through a wondrous experience. I often ask myself what it must be like to live in a half-blind world where the road being walked upon cannot be seen with vision? To live in the eternal moment, no beginning, no end, just the immediate present?

There seems to be no escaping the vortex of violence and words again fail me after the brutal killings in Bali. One asks oneself why? Why do innocents have to die? Perhaps one has to have an understanding of the act of terrorism itself. Those concerned, have a compulsive need for revenge. They don’t count the cost. It is all or nothing. Always. For them there is no in-between. There’s no one truth. They have no moral distinctions. They are fanatical, ruthless and uncompromising, stupid, blind and deadly. The bottom line is that they believe, absolutely and without question, that terror is the one legitimate weapon they have left. It gives them a licence to terrorise and the way to remove the problem is to destroy the source. Evil, when allowed to grow, develops into the grip of a hypnotic spell. Evil is no mystifying concept, it is the inability to change for the good. We have notions of good and evil, reward and punishment which is converted into religions or when not capable of even that much, what we call Law. Again, we should not let those who are responsible for this atrocity go unpunished.

Newspaper reports come across as a rambling incoherent, hotchpotch of generalised statements, vague allegations and innuendos, without any substantiation and are based on half-truths and the like. I suppose what we learn from newspaper articles is a heavily truncated version of the truth. You know something and you guess some more thinking you have the whole story and it’s as if you’ve baked the perfect cake standing tall with evidence but once removed from the oven it sinks in the middle! I have to admit though, I begin to wonder if the pieces don’t add up because adding up isn’t a part of the plan. I have all too little evidence of any substance upon which to base my surmises - and even, ironically enough, the word “imaginations”. Making connections out of very little is one thing but the pieces I’ve produced seem to belong to a different puzzle. I’ve run through in my mind everything that’s happened. The proof is not there and not likely to come. That kind of proof only surfaces afterwards. I suspect it’s buried somewhere amongst the raw data that’s intercepted, partially processed and filed away each day. They just don’t know they have it - that one clue linking a circle of death and duplicity that stretches from the Middle East - terror in Yemen and Kuwait - a part of a trail with no beginning and the very deadliest of ends in Bali. A series of coincidences that probably can be rationally explained but the more I try and force my thoughts in another direction the stronger I find myself being pulled back to what I don’t want to accept. I don’t like anomalies. I always consider them suspect. My mind goes off on unsubstantiated tangents with nothing even remotely pulled forward to tie it together. It’s like one of those Russian metrushka dolls - a doll within a doll within a doll. Everything highly compartmentalised but no one has the complete picture!

Are Al Queda and Jemaah Islamiah moving towards a common strategy as has been suggested in some news reports? Recent events have led me to do some serious thinking. It is my belief that they are pursuing a number of different strategies. One strategy is no doubt a consolidation of assets. Their strategies, individually, vary greatly and will change continuously in the foreseeable future. They will continue to focus heavily on creating unrest within the Asian region and they will penetrate even more deeply. Primarily they will focus on consolidation of operations, rationalising and achieving greater co-operation and coordinating between groups. Their goal is to develop strong and profitable long-term relationships with carefully targeted individuals. In the past such a partnership could not have been foreseen because of differences between countries. Today, they are moving towards each other as they see profitability in achieving their aims. No doubt such co-operation will prove useless, in some instances, and seem highly uncertain when considered alone, but when viewed together, as a portfolio, it takes on a different significance. It will give them a dominant position within the region.

There have been fears that sensitive information was being held back by the Indonesians. The American’s have privately condemned the inadequate, imprecise and quite unhelpful nature of the information given to them recently. There are those within the Indonesian Government who are fully aware what was going on and who are ensuring no-one peels away any more layers and I ask myself why are the Indonesians protecting the information? The Indonesians haven’t given anything like the hard information that the American’s want/need. The whole thing is too pat. There’s something very rotten somewhere. Furthermore, their evasiveness suggests an ulterior motive. It’s unpalatable, unnecessary and hardly prudent. The Indonesians cannot afford to be stubborn, neither can they afford to stick their heads in the sand. One thing is certain, it isn’t a good habit to bite the hand that feeds and curiously, it is my belief, the intelligence barriers the Indonesians have erected will work against them in future years. I struggle away at the questions I have in my own mind. In the end, aren’t all the answers a matter of simplicity, even to the extent of over-simplification? Simplicity, I guess, is only arrived at after so many devious excursions, like Goethe’s drunken beggar on horseback, through complexity.

Indonesia may be forced to react to domestic developments. There are many deeply troubling issues besetting Indonesia. The growing influence of Islamic fundamentalism is just a small part of what is occurring and Islamic fundamentalism is likely to present considerable challenges in the future. There is no doubt that terrorism will impact Indonesia from an economic and financial point of view. Megawati will continue to walk a fine tightrope. And when the shock wears off ... it will become a grotesque carousel, carnal, cruel and brutal. The current situation is not only very fluid but highly critical. The struggle ahead is going to be overwhelming for the current government. A failing economy will create general disillusionment within Indonesian society, which may rally popular support behind a menacing ideology. You cannot neglect or have disdain for the Indonesian military. Events of change can easily trigger a violent response on the part of powers bent on preserving the prevailing status quo. It will require considerable sensitivity to the dangerous political dynamic in the region.