Reporting on the Gaia and Sophia Rainforest Snake Festival, Arnhem Land

To all Sisters, Kumbaya, and Hi!

Sister Feralia here with more jottings on our doings, this time going West and North.

In Perth, Western Australia this week, we engaged in a walking tour, sighting the urban palaces of Alan Bond and Rose Hancock. Such affluence! Our Lord may have walked on water, but Bond, the rich entrepreneur, knew how to turn around the sea to his advantage and win a Yachting Cup. Prophet Mohammed may have gone to the Mountain, but Rose's late husband, Lang, the mining magnate, knew how to make the mountain come to him. He demolished it and reaped billions of dollars worth of minerals.

So wealthy is the locale I felt we really should pay some money to breathe the air. Perhaps we ought to have worn facial filters so that when we exhaled we would not contaminate the neighborhood. Police cars slowed as they passed because pedestrians there are almost unknown. They looked suspiciously at our veils.

Sister Odomatous carried three painted statues, Our Blessed Lady, Sophia and Gaia, representing Purity, Wisdom and Earth, with great fortitude, but her energy finally gave up at the Hancock Mansion. She staggered and put them down with a belch.

I wonder how Rose Hancock would feel when she came out next morning to discover these three abandoned great emblems of Femininity standing next to the plaster of paris Twelve Red and Green Garden Gnomes and the Black Native Hunter Standing on One Leg with Spear , and the concrete Replica of the America's Cup given to Rose by the cup's winner, Alan Bond.

Rose, of course, is a Catholic from the Philippines. Not a Filipino, but a Filipina. I like to get Feminine things right. I do not believe the story that Rose met the (now deceased) Lang in a hotel lobby. I think it is more likely she met him at the entrance to a Church, or perhaps when Lang visited The Mission Centre for Fallen Women, Bar Girls, Lap Dancers, Religious Artists, Sculptors and Liturgical Musicians. Perhaps they met at Smokey Mountain, where locals do 'mining' like Lang once did, but in their case in the garbage from Manila.

We had hoped to see the Great Lady. I played on my trusty 'axe' (that's what we musos call a guitar). I sang all thirty-seven verses of Kumbaya, in Tagalog dialect, to try to lure her outdoors, but to no avail.

Instead, a large Rotweiler Dog emerged. It bit Sister Odomatous on the knee, which required thirteen stitches. I felt this had astrological, numerological and religious significance. Thirteen is a mysterious Number. Some say it is unlucky, but added together it makes four, which is the Four Quarters of Mother Earth. It is also the Atomic Weight of the Aluminium in the aircraft which carried us here.

It was strange that it was the good sister's genuflecting knee injured when the dog bit her by way of demur.

Sister Odomatous, however, recuperated rapidly and remarkably.

In the afternoon she astounded us, when we were taken to a screening of the new film, Beyond the Sea, by getting up and boogying in the aisle of the cinema.

Perhaps it was the combination of penicillin and painkillers, but we discovered a 375 ml bottle of Vickers Gin on her person later in the day.

Sister Odomatous during the movie confessed that it was her unrequited love for Bobby Darin that led her to enter the Sisterhood. 'I wanted to be a nun who looked like Sandra Dee,' she said. I informed her that Sandra Dee suffered from both alcoholism and anorexia, so there!

She must have smuggled a towel from the motel because next thing she was singing, and gesturing with it, as she boogied down the aisle:

Splish, splash
I was takin' a bath
Long about a Saturday night... yeah!
Rub-a-dub
Just relaxin' in the tub
Thinkin' everything was all right.

Well... I stepped out the tub
Put my feet on the floor
I wrapped the towel around me
And I opened the door.

And... then-a... splish, splash
I jumped back in the bath
Well... how was I to know
There was a party going on.

They was a splishin' and a splashin'
Reelin' with the feelin'
Moving and a groovin'
Rockin' and a rollin'... yeah!

Bing, bang
I saw the whole gang
Dancin' on my living room rug... yeah...
Flip flop
They was doin' the bop
All the teens had the dancin' bug.

There was Lollipop with-a Peggy Sue
Good Golly, Miss Molly was-a even there, too!
A-well-a.... splish, splash
I forgot about the bath
I went and put my dancin' shoes on... yea!

I was a rollin' and a strollin'
Reelin' with the feelin'
Movin' and a groovin'
Splishin' and a splashin'... yeah!

Yes... I was a splishin' and a splashin'
I was a rollin' and a strollin'
Yeah... I was a movin' and a groovin' ... woo!
We was a reelin' with the feelin'... ha!
We was a rollin' and a strollin'
Movin' with the groovin'
Splish, splash... yeah!

I was a splishin' and a splashin'... one time...
I was a splishin' and a splashin'... woo-woo!
I was a movin' and a-groovin'...

It must have been the Vickers Gin.. Tears rolled down the chubby, girlish and flushed cheeks of Sister Odomatous as she embarked on another refrain from her heartstrings of Celibacy. It was punctuated by an occasional sob.

Somewhere beyond the sea
Somewhere waiting for me
My lover stands on golden sands
And watches the ships that go sailing

Somewhere beyond the sea
She's there watching for me
If I could fly like birds on high
Then straight to her arms
I'd go sailing

It's far beyond the stars
It's near beyond the moon
I know beyond a doubt
My heart will lead me there soon

We'll meet beyond the shore
We'll kiss just as before
Happy we'll be beyond the sea
And never again I'll go sailing

I know beyond a doubt
My heart will lead me there soon
We'll meet (I know we'll meet) beyond the shore
We'll kiss just as before
Happy we'll be beyond the sea
And never again I'll go sailing

No more sailing
So long sailing
Bye, bye sailing...

The combination of the canine assault and injury, antibiotics, analgesics, and self medication with ethanol must have precipitated some kind of bipolar condition, because Sister Odomatous then moved from maudlinity to high excitement.

She climbed on the shoulders of Father 'Leaper' Leppington, our chaplain, threw her arms into the air and shrieked:

I'm sitting on top of the world,
Just rolling along
Just rolling along.

I'm quitting the blues of the world,
Just singing a song
Just singing a song.

Glory, hallelujah, I just phoned the parson,
"Hey, Par, get ready to call!" [at this she gives the good Father a hearty jab in the ear]
Just like humpty dumpty
I'm ready to fall. [pretends to collapse down the good priest's posterior]

I'm sitting on top of the world, [arms in the air]
Just rolling along
Just rolling along.

I'm quitting the blues of the world,
Just singing a song
Just singing a song. [falls in a heap, arises, bows deeply]

Her priestly prisoner now freed, the Sister released a torrent of tears saying she wanted to be a 'heart surgeon in memory of Bobby Darin'. It took considerable effort to get her into a taxi.

She sang to the driver:

Yes... I was a splishin' and a splashin'
I was a rollin' and a strollin'
Yeah... I was a movin' and a groovin' ... woo!
We was a reelin' with the feelin'... ha!
We was a rollin' and a strollin'
Movin' with the groovin'
Splish, splash... yeah!

The driver, who appeared to be of rural background, said: 'Thirty dollars. You got veils. Are you Terrorists from the East?'

Early next morning it was up, up and away.

Not via 'TAA the Friendly Way' like we used to say in Australia during the times of Bobby Darin and our Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies in the Fifties, but Qantas, the 'Spirit' of Australia.

Our destination: the indigenous area of Arnhem Land, in Australia's jungly far North, a place of Aboriginal Mystery and Crocodiles (Americans called them alligators until they saw the film Crocodile Dundee and also read in the newspaper that several American tourists had provided themselves as dinner for crocodiles) for our Gaia and Sophia Rainforest Snake Festival.

Upon landing we were given a solemn welcome by the Aboriginal elders who had red kerchiefs tied around their heads, white ochre smeared on their bodies. They had bits of cloth around their nether regions for the sake of Male Modesty. I instructed the Sisters to maintain Custody of the Eyes in accordance with their training in the Novitiate.

Their hands held a variety of reptiles.

There were black snakes, brown snakes, taipans, death adders, king browns, green tree snakes, cobras imported from Asia, baby crocodiles. Prominent was a GIANT PYTHON which seemed to have developed an appetite, judging from the way its tongue was all a-flicker. It never once took its eyes off us.

The Elder holding the Giant Python took one look at Sister Odomatous and said, 'This Sacred Place. No drinking.' and taking another glance, 'And no petrol sniffing either.'

The singing and dancing with the reptiles, to the sound of clap sticks and a didgeridoo, the indigenous woodwind instrument, took more than three hours.

I suggested to Sister Odomatous that she lie down and rest in a native shelter of bark and fallen branches. She mumbled, 'Bobby, Bobby, Bobby … splish, splashhhhhh.' And instantly was asleep.

In response to the natives' Snake Dance, our nuns replied with their version of the Hokey Pokie and Old Time Square Dance with Do-si-Do, a touching reminder of their schooldays.

'Allemande left with your left hand, promenade that corner maid … Do-si-do and away you go…' I kept up the rhythm with my complete repertoire, the chords of D, A7 and G, on my faithful old guitar. The strings are nylon. I will not have any animal products.

The Chief Elder broke the proceedings with a raised, gnarled hand and a sudden announcement:

'Now we feed dead wallaby to Python as we honour Great Rainbow Serpent Spirit.'

Strangely, the creature refused to eat the offered furry, recently deceased, but flyblown marsupial.

Prodded and coaxed, it declined like a sulky baby in a high chair. Yet only a short time ago it had appeared ravenous.

Horror of horrors! I realized two things at the same time: First, Sister Odomatous was missing from her shelter. Second, the Python had a suspicious large bulge and was trying to sleep like a husband on Sunday afternoon in front of the television.

Closer examination disclosed an outline of the departed Sister.

One could see beneath the reptile's stretched skin the rolled up tube of the cardboard program of Beyond the Sea, and there through the strained, almost transparent hide also visible was Sister's beaky nose, large tummy and pointy shoes.

This was a Call to Action. We prodded with sharp sticks, kicked and screamed at the Beast which closed its eyes and gave a snakey burp before again seeking slumber in the jungle.

Chief Elder seized the carved and painted didgeridoo. He gave the Python a mighty whack amidships.

Whoosh, out burst Sister Odomatous.

Three partly-digested flying possums, a frilled lizard, eight frogs, a female magpie bird and a bushman's brown leather boot followed. The Python gave another snakey burp.

Coming to a halt a metre in front of the Python, Sister Odomatous took a deep, rattly inhalation of air, looked up at me, my fellow Sisters and the elders.

She paused for a moment, smiled in relief.

Then she startled the elders with a sudden rush of unfamiliar words::

Yes... I was a splishin' and a splashin'
I was a rollin' and a strollin'
Yeah... I was a movin' and a groovin' ... woo!
We was a reelin' with the feelin'... ha!
We was a rollin' and a strollin'.
Movin' with the groovin'
Splish, splash... yeah!

Arnhem Land has seen much in its ancient history. In more than forty thousand years of human habitation, however, it has never seen such a Snake Festival nor has it encountered anybody like Sister Odomatous.

Until next time, may the Feminine Spirit be with you all.

Feralia

Sister Feralia is the face of the New Feminism, a healthy antidote to the testosterone-driven ecclesial community of Father Farzenheim and the Fathers of Divine Wrath.

We welcome your feedback in our discussion forum.

©2006 Clifford Baxter

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