Dumbo Feather

Dumbo Feather is an iconic Australian magazine. Published quarterly for seven years, and hailed around the world as a design leader, it is a magazine like no other. Our readers are people who want to be told a different story than the one they hear every day. Each quarterly issue features five extended (20 page) profiles of people worth knowing, across enterprise, education, science, sport, politics, fashion and the arts. Whether they’ve touched millions, or just those around them, we take the time to get to know these people, and ask them to tell us their stories.

BENEATH AN EYELID

Dumbo Feather

Happy springtime!

Becoming

RIDING THE WAVES • “You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf,” said Jon Kabat-Zinn. Through sharing his love of the ocean, former big-wave surfer Rusty Moran is transforming the lives of returned Australian Defence Force members affected by post-traumatic stress.

THE ENLIGHTENED PLUMBER: GROUNDING THE SPIRITUAL • In early adulthood, Pierz Newton-John escaped the trauma of an unhappy adolescence and sought enlightenment in India. What he learned through his experience is that the spiritual life begins at home.

ETERNAL FLAME • Wangan and Jagalingou man Coedie McAvoy has kept a fire continuously alight near the site of the Adani Carmichael mine in Queensland for more than a year. This is his story of non-violent protest.

BRIDGES • Amid the 2020 lockdowns in Sydney, two women born on opposite sides of the world were brought together through the passing of their mothers. They helped each other through the hardest days and turned their pain into a charttopping podcast and resource for those dealing with grief – Good Mourning. Two friends share their story of healing together through community and laughter, and what that's taught them about life.

COMING IN TO COME OUT • Everyone should have the experience of “coming out” in their lives. Not only because it would wipe the assumption slate clean and place us as equals on a path towards disclosing our gender and sexual identities when we're ready. That's massively important. But also, because the experience of sharing something so deeply personal about oneself can be life-giving.

Doing

SYLVIA BOORSTEIN STROLLS OFF THE PLANE

SAUL GRIFFITH OFFERS SOLUTIONS

HETTY MCKINNON EMBRACES NOSTALGIA

SEAWEED SCRAMBLE • My dad was rarely responsible for cooking dinner. The only time he did so was when my mother was feeling poorly. During these occasions, he always made salmon scrambled eggs. So scrambled eggs tangled with the salty, rich, blushed flesh of canned salmon, served with white rice. It was not the most gourmet dinner we ate as kids, but it is a memory we cling to. During the 1980s, canned salmon, especially the red variety that my mother occasionally splurged on, felt like a treat, so a salmon egg scramble was, in many ways, an indulgent meal. This seaweed scramble is my vegetarian take on my dad's signature meal – the seaweed imparts the scent of the sea and a lovely umami flavour. A simple meal full of nostalgia and bittersweet memories.

NADINE CHAMPION IS A TEACHER

Being

CHOP WOOD, CARRY WATER: PSYCHEDELICS, NATURE AND SPIRITUALITY

ACTS OF KINDNESS IN THREE DIMENSIONS OF RELATIONSHIP

ALONE WITH YOUR THOUGHTS, WHAT DO YOU THINK?

MAGPIE