The Hunter Valley

Hunter Valley wines in Australia are famous for their quality. They are respected as much as the Big Barossa Reds, or the South Australian classics. The Hunter Valley is in New South Wales.

Tyrrell's shiraz -
absolutely glorious

The Australian bushland virtually in any State has a timeless, rather than a 'merely' ancient, feel to it. There is tremendous authenticity about products made in the country regions - and even where modernity has entered into the structures and the lives of people living in those regional 'country' districts, sheer distance and remoteness has served to maintain people's use of locally-available raw materials and traditional craft-skills.

Snow is everywhere in the high mountain areas
of News South Wales right now

At the same time however, it is not until you have witnessed life in such remote places first-hand, that you begin to appreciate that luxury is just plain not an invention of cities, and nor is it limited to Milan or Paris New York. In some peculiar, almost metaphysical way, the Australian Bush and country regions, or the 'Outback,' has more in common with Florence, than San Francisco does or some other similar large and modern city with claims on luxury and style leadership.

And it all has to do with authenticity and genuineness.

Cobb and Co was a great Australian transport company a hundred years ago, which was started by American businessmen partnering with local Australians. Today, the name still adorns products manufactured using traditional standards of quality and materials.

All those 'old rich' bywords of traditional luxury - leather, wood, rabbits felt, brass, and even gold and silver - are still available in products made and used in the Australian Bush lifestyle. And 'lifestyle' remains an authentic word in this respect, because there are many people in Australia who still live it in some part in a true sense - that is, genuinely; without affectation. 

Send something in a leather and gold envelope...

There is absolutely nothing genuine or authentic or stable or certain or reliable about so much of today's world. 

There are some people who know this, but not many say it, probably because they will not be believed. Parts of Australia exists outside of time itself, and in those places, you will find the extreme far distant past alongside the far distant future. The 'reach' of human mind, goes all ways - into the past as well as into the future, and can become lateralized across the ambit of present's multidimensional spectrum. The mind is juxtaposition in its best form. But it is also authentic. Remember this, the human mind is authentic, and real. It is not a fantasy, even though it is fantastical, and it is not to be trifled with by lop-sided weaker minds whose obsessive materialistic grasping nature is the result of innate inadequacy, and not power, strength or resilience. There is a time to be glowing with wealth and riches, and there is a time to Winter down. That is, the great secret of gathering authentic wealth in first place. For a flower that blooms in a day, as soon fades and is gone. A day, is but a short time to the gods and to eternity. Mastering the secrets of Time, is a shamanic ability. But this one simply must do, in order to fully understand the day and age in which we all live right now. 

Lightronix - 'Reach' 

The cost and value of things, is not observed sufficiently closely by too many belonging to today's outward world: time plus effort comes at great cost, while instant gratification has a high value. One of these things is fixed and real, and the other, is a movable matter.

Essential beauty - or the essential quality of beauty - can exist in the juxtaposition of ruin and epiphany.