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The ever beautiful Jayne.

How strange to have last seen you as a gorgeous teenager

and now see you have blossomed into a gorgeous woman!

It’s been a little while since I handed out my last goddess award.

This one has been swimming about in my head for months,

and it is time to let it flower.



I am so grateful for the presence of these beautiful, powerful women in my life.



I’d like to introduce you to the latest inductee to the Leonie Hall of Goddess Fame ~

Jayne Landsberg.



I met Jayne when I was 16 and went to boarding school.

When I first got to boarding school, I was put in White Dorm

with both Goddess Jayne and Goddess Helena (already inducted)

I remember that in the first few nights, Jayne pulled me into her cubicle,

and we gossiped and giggled with Helena

and it was just so lovely and so friendly and homely.

In those moments I realised that I didn’t need to be afraid of boarding school and making friends,

because I’d already found them. Right there.

Then the dorm mistress walked in to inspect that everyone was in their beds, and there was a mad scattering

of bodies and flurries into doonas, pretending we were already asleep.



tee hee hee



Within a month, I was moved into Green Dorm, away from Helena and Jayne

I didn’t want to leave them but knew that moving into Green Dorm was a wonderful step for me

I was right ~ I met the amazing Zetty and Shannon there

and got to take care of all the younger boarding girls.



The next year though, as senior of Green Dorm, I got to pick another senior

and of course, I chose Jayne.

Jayne to live down the hall from me, Jayne to have a precious window cubicle,

Jayne to help when the beautiful younger girls became brats,

And most importantly, Jayne because I wanted to know her better.



How do I explain the beauty of Jayne to you?



She has the biggest heart.

She is compassionate beyond belief. I cannot tell you how compassionate this girl is.

She puts others before herself always. She boosts and revitalises and saves people on a daily basis.

Sometimes, I wish she could see herself in the same space of compassion, and see herself as we see her:

immensely beautiful, a glorious human bean, loving, loveable, incredible, talented.

She is artistic, and heartfelt.

She has beautiful, overflowing journals. We would eat Tim Tams and sit in our pyjamas and journal merrily away.

We would have conversations during study time. Big conversations. Conversations about life and loving and growing.

She has beautiful flowing handwriting.

She used to have the biggest collection of paint markers that she mysteriously obtained from the art room at school.

We are both such stationery~heads.

She is strong and determined and fiercely loving.

She is a goddess incarnate.

Her room at home is vivid green.

She has a group of guys ~ “her boys” ~ who love her to bits and she loves them back. So beautiful to see such heartfelt cross~gender friendships.

She is the girl who ran barefoot for kilometres along a bitumen road after a runaway girl.

She is the woman who is growing into herself so beautifully.

She is a passionate writer and artist even when she berates herself.

My favourite weekend of all my boarding school days was that long weekend spent on her parent’s huge cattle property.

We rode around on the backs of trucks and camped by the river.

We got drunk together in a dried up creek bed, surrounded by good people and an expansive sky.

It was beautiful, and I learned so much in that weekend from her, her land, and her friends.

She sent me an email which overwhelmed me with love and gratefulness:

just to say this blog had made her start writing again.

My heart leapt. The writing of Jayne is so important for this world.

I believe this with all of my innards.

Jayne is the reason I was drawn to crystals.

She had a horse accident, and was in great pain, and I had a vision of her with crystals lying on her back.

I went out and got some shortly after. Though I couldn’t cure her pain, it opened a new world for me.

Jayne who left school to study journalism

and became a journalist at the leading state-wide rural newspaper.

Jayne, the cowgirl and Jayne, the city dweller.

Jayne, the girl and Jayne, the woman.

She has beautiful hair. Kind eyes.

The smile which lights a room.

Jayne is succulent in all its many realms.

A beautiful heart, a wondrous spirit, a growing consciousness.



Jayne, today I wish to honour the beauty and friendship you have brought into my life.

You are a true Goddess.

And I love you to bits.