The “giant squid” egg on the beach didn’t actually arrive on the rising tide. That was just me having fun trying to get an interesting photo. Instead, it was sent in a padded box by young fourth grader Patrick Kammar from the Jemicy School near Baltimore, Maryland as part of a “migration project’ that is looking at the survival rate of those species that migrate through the seasons.

The teacher initially wrote: “We’ve had some trouble in the past getting our eggs through Australian Customs intact, but we thought we’d try.”

Well, the egg did make the 25,000 mile journey all in one piece. No Humpty Dumpty here. Not so lucky, though, (and this is what the school’s experiment is looking into) are the dead blue-bottle jelly fish and the never-to-hatch fish eggs seen in the photo alongside Patrick’s egg. Migration is a tricky business. Whether one is a bird, fish or human refugee, moving around the globe trying to survive is fraught with plenty of danger.

PS. For us surfers, seeing blue-bottle jellyfish is both good and bad. They have a nasty sting, but are an unfailing indication of warmer water as they come down to Tasmania on the warm currents from eastern Australia.

Still Another Day #VI

Pardon me, if when I want
to tell the story of my life
it’s the land I talk about.
This is the land.
It grows in your blood
and you grow.
If it dies in your blood
you die out.

Pablo Neruda

A bit worn at the edges and nearly camouflaged, the simple message is still there after two years. Tree took that human written word—once sharply white, crisp, handmade, newly formed—and transformed it into itself: into bark; into bleeding stains of growth and aged lichen-grey peels.

Four letters attached to tree make redundant what tree already knew. Still knows. It was always there, this love within the tree. Only us humans needed to have it spelt out. When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn?

Yesterday…..an email from a friend who had just returned from Scotland:

meanwhile jet lag is keeping me awake – as are the log trucks now every fifteen minutes or so down the southern outlet – on this still night they are like a great roaring decelerating down the hill into town then rumbling down Macquarie Street – what a madness it all is – out there in Europe green is huge – what idiots run our govt down here.

Yesterday…..the editorial in the newspaper asked the question: “Should more Tasmanian forests be protected from logging?”  I replied:

The real tragedy is that the question is even asked. To continue putting to the axe aged forests thousands of years old, creates a wound in Tasmania’s psyche as great as the stain of its brutal convict days.

We keep denying the life sustaining power of nature; of its immense capacity to love us back into wholeness. Pardon me, but when the last of the ancient trees are cut down, what then?

Like many other lucky people, I received Paulus Berensohn’s Valentine card this week. This year his drawing is, at once, more powerful and more pleading.

Opening up the card, Paulus writes on the inside:

“Help”
the cry of the Heart
— to offer and give
— to need and receive
— to each other and our earth

For Paulus, the heart, in all its manifest shapes and sizes, is asking for help. In this time of global chaos, the cry of the heart is not specifically personal or solely human. Gaia also is hurting; anima mundi also is hurting; all creatures great and small are hurting. Love is needed everywhere.

On the morning of this Valentine’s Day, I found, half drowned in the bottom of a water jug, a Little Pygmy-possum desperately trying to stay alive. It had fallen in looking for something to drink, but due to its small size—two inches long, 60 mm—it was unable to climb or jump out of the jug. Boy, did it look miserable.

While resident artist, Sally, cuddled the little guy close to her belly to help lessen any hypothermic conditions, a hot-water bottle was prepared and positioned in the bottom of a box, followed by lots of soft clothing. Here, the pygmy-possum was gently placed in a warming hollow of clothes. Giving us what looked like a heartfelt “sweet thank you”, it then burrowed deep into the fabric and disappeared out of sight.

Nothing could be done now but wait until nightfall and see if this tiny nocturnal marsupial revived enough to climb out of the box and find its way beneath the oven where, I suppose, it feasted nightly on the bits of food and crumbs dropped by the messy chef.

When Sally and I returned late from a trip to Hobart for our own food gathering and a dinner out, we noticed that the box was empty. We went to bed sleepy in the contented knowledge that all had turned out okay.

But, as in all matters of the heart, the doors of compassion, joy and pain keep opening and shutting. The “little guy” turned out to be a mother as, the next morning, I found two dead babies on the kitchen floor, most likely drowned while in the pouch of its mother and subsequently removed when she, herself, recovered. A third was later found by Sally.

All three are now buried under a stone at the base of the ancestral midden. May their little spirits rest in peace.

Song (4)

Within the circles of our lives
we dance the circles of the years,
the circles of the seasons
within the circles of the years,
the cycles of the moon
within the circles of the seasons,
the circles of our reasons
within the cycles of the moon.

Again, again we come and go,
changed, changing. Hands
join, unjoin in love and fear,
grief and joy. The circles turn,
each giving into each, into all.
Only music keeps us here,

each by all the others held.
In the hold of hands and eyes
we turn in pairs, that joining
joining each to all again.

And then we turn aside, alone,
out of the sunlight gone

into the darker circles of return.

Wendell Berry

By happy conincidence, I came across the above Wendell Berry poem a few days before Sally Horne set up in the studio to paint a series of four mandalas while in residence at Windgrove. With today being a “solstice” event, it only seems appropriate that she is painting circles within circles.

Myself……? I have come to accept the coming and going of Wingrove residents who leave me “changed, changing”; each resident a new cycle within the many cycles that we all turn in.

Also, in the mail this week, a copy of D.H. Lawrence’s version of the importance of recognizing, through ritual, that the solstice turnings are a necessary component of deepening our love for all and sundry.

“Oh, what a catastrophe, what a maiming of love when it was made personal—merely personal feeling—taken away from the rising and the setting of the sun, and cut off from the magical connection of the solstice and equinox. This is what is the matter with us, we are bleeding at the roots, because we are cut off from the earth, the sun and the stars, and love is a grining mockery, because, poor blossom, we plucked it from its stem on the tree of life and expected it to keep on blooming in our vase on the table…

…it is a question of relationship. We must get back into relation, vivid and nourishing relation to the cosmos, through daily ritual—the rituals of dawn and noon and sunset, the ritual of kindling the fire and pouring water…”

D.H. Lawrence

A salute is an arm extended or a rigid military snap to the forehead.

A pledge of allegiance is the right hand over the heart.

An oath is the hand placed on a religious text
.
A prayer, however, whether one is kneeling, standing, sitting, prostrate or lying on one’s back in the water, is one palm against the other and gently touching the lips.

Hands closed in prayer. Such a universally accepted symbol of peace and gratitude.

A fur seal last Sunday reminds me that today, Thursday, millions of families in America will be doing just this as thanks is given for the rich and bountiful harvest present at their Thanksgiving Day tables.

Let me also give thanks.

And, by way of creating a framework to hang my reason for giving thanks, I offer first this poem from Robert Hayden:

Those Winter Sundays

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?

Robert Hayden

Second, an excerpt from an email sent by my friend, Clare, after spending the weekend here with her daughters, Brook and Kate, and partner, Jeff:

“A few months ago Brook shared with me her deep fears for the world, for what the future would hold, would there be clean water, would bird flu kill us, if she was expected to be a decision maker of the future, what chance did she have if so much was destroyed.  As a mother I would love to make the world safe and nourishing for my children.  I am trying to seek out positive news, to show Brook people doing good work, to nurture hope and a feeling of safety and to do so I feel I need help from other adults who believe in goodness. Thank you for being who you are, doing what you do, and being willing to have pesky visitors like us.”

The above poem and email might exhibit some disparity, but what I’m trying to explain is that any goodness coming from me is only because of the nurturing—and lack of it—surrounding my childhood.

Bless my parents. Both held down full time jobs to support a family of five children. Leaving early, coming home late, could there ever have been enough time for them to cuddle and soothe the fears of the crying child, the lonely child? Could there ever have been enough?

Whatever portion of my adult self still harbours a sense of abandonment, this same self is also capable of, yearns for and is skilled enough to create a place of refuge that offers up to today’s children a working reality of positiveness and caring.

I as “wounded healer” is too one sided an argument because, although not always felt or appreciated at the time, there was an abundant measure of love dished out by my parents.

On this Thanksgiving Day, I am deeply grateful for the whole chaotic, touching, delicious mess that was my childhood. It has led me unwaveringly to the bounty that is today. For this, with palms touching and pressed against my lips, I thank my parents, Paul and Etheleen, for their struggles in juggling the lot of us.

Let me also give thanks to the young family of Clare, Jeff, Brook and Kate for cheerfully fixing up the garden domes this past weekend so that there will be wholesome veggies on the Windgrove table to share with all.

I see the rainbow, but I also see the storm.

This week a 14 year old boy from Melbourne, who had recently visited Windgrove with his school mates, sent me a letter.

“You are definitely one of the most amazing people I have ever met! Your determination to save the environment is fantastic. The experiences that we had were nothing like anything we had experienced before.”

But I also received another email, part of which read: “……I take offence at your comments.”

In short, my determination to save the environment was fantastic for one person and an offence for another. The thing is, they were both correct.

The latter email came from someone whom I have known for around 15 years in the environment movement and who has even stayed at Windgrove a few times with his wife and child. He also works at the local Council and has a role to play in how the dirt bike noise issue gets resolved.

Earlier this week, when it seemed to us eleven property owners at Roaring Beach that our multiple letters of complaint about the dirt bikes were not being acted upon by our Council after the return of the dirt bikes on the weekend, well…… what can I say, but that I wrote a quite heated letter to the Council and castigated everyone, including my friend, for not being professional and upholding the law.

I even wrote the friend and said something along the line of: “If I have to choose between friendship or the environment, the environment will win.”.

I have since apologised, and my friend may or may not forgive me.

The point that I’m trying to make, however, is that doing a fantastic job for the environment is not ever easy. Friendships can be created, but friendships can as easily be lost.

My last blog stirred up a good deal of discussion.

Four extracted comments (from three women, one man):

“Your writing is defensive and aggressive. You say you want to praise the beauty and original blessing of the body, but the rage and defiance at the surface of your words is at odds with your stated intent.”

“I have just been onto your web site – so enjoyed your man in prayer.”

“Thank you Peter for spelling out and reminding me of the sacredness of our bodies.”

“It is a lovely photo of you and the marvellous tree… I am coming into a new practice and deep appreciation of my body lately. and entering my own inner wildness and uncharted cosmos within. All quite wonderful and I wish It had been sooner but I rejoice I am only in the early part of 2nd half of life. I have often thought of doing a nude photography class where we are all nude in nature- the “models” and the photographer and then we both switch…roles. It would be very beautiful, healing and respectful to do.”

I appreciate and value all four comments as there is something for me to consider within each of them.

Today, however, I want to avoid words and just share the photos I took yesterday of two sections of the sand stone cliffs at Roaring Beach that have elements of the human form in them.

These ageless “torsos” are beyond beauty.

Sorry about the late entry this week, but today is the first day that my fingers can type comfortably. If people have a sense of deja vu looking at today’s photo, they are correct in their assumption that they have seen those hands before.

Just over a year ago I wrote a blog entry entitled “Holding the Vision” and used this photo. I am including it again for three reasons.

Firstly, last Friday while swimming in relatively calm waters I pulled a shoulder muscle and lived with a high level of discomfort until I could get to Hobart to see a physio-therapist on Wednesday. And not one but two. Tethys did some osteopathic work that helped tremendously in relieving the chronic pain. Then Michael, my masseur for the past 19 years, did some deep tissue work that complimented Tethy’s earlier work. Their hands were healing hands for my neck and shoulder and I am tremendously grateful for the skills these two people possess.

Secondly, during the nights preceding the visit to Hobart when sleeping was nigh impossible, I would question whether or not I would ever again have the ability to use my hands to carve in the way I am used to carving. This nightmarish fear in the dark space of night was quite scary. Only now, as the future outlook seems not to be a surgical one rather a management one, can I marvel at the beautiful complexity (and fragility) that is our body. How astoundingly wonderful are just our hands.

And thirdly, while pondering what photo to use for this week’s blog entry, I received an email from the Trinity Respite Center that read in part:

“We are a rural, non-profit program that takes care of seniors with Alzheimer’s. We loved the image of “Holding a Vision,” and wanted to check to see about using this image for a publication…”

When I wrote back agreeing, I also asked where in this internet world they existed and how did they come by this photo. The reply (in part):

“We are located in Ashland, Oregon and serve families living with memory loss. We hit “images” in Google and then “hands” and Voila! Clip art! We have a day activities program for 22 seniors with Alzheimer’s, stroke or related dementias. Your photo will be the front of a card we are using to hold the vision for compassionate care for our seniors. One man here claps when he is happy–often–and his hands are strangely beautiful. It is inspiring to know that people like you are out there. Your sense of service makes it possible for us to get out our mailing without more angst over the image. You must be a lovely person.”

Makes my pain very bearable indeed.

Why I Wake Early

Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who make the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety —

best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light —
good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.

Mary Oliver

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This morning, very early, before the storm clouds swept in from the west, I was able to witness the eclipsed orange moon hang tenderly in the diminishing starry sky; its coloured beauty totally dependent upon the very sun that Mary Oliver so eloquently writes about in her newly released poem (received in yesterday’s mail).

And, although my little camera wasn’t able to catch this particular wonder, the same star light powering the moon’s beauty, was as piercingly beautiful bouncing off the cliffs of Roaring Beach.

The squall has passed and I now sit in the far corner reading more of Mary’s poems, letting the sun stream into the house and touch me also with its healing light; letting me, once again, start the day in happiness, in kindness.

Last night, after a big meal, I tried to write a journal entry using this photo of the ancestral bench’s shadow pointing to the reflected spiral in the water. (In the Peace Garden, the spiral symbolises the future.) This was after receiving an email from a friend who had movingly related the dying of his grandmother,

“a young catholic girl named Herta with a high Nazi uncle who followed her Jewish boyfriend and his family from Austria to Shanghai China, who gave birth to twins, of which only the stronger, my mum, survived and then emigrated to Australia as a post-war refugee to make a new life.”

I wanted to write of the importance of connecting to the stories of our ancestors so that we, in the present, can find some guidance to lead us to the future.

But…. my eyes could not stay open any longer as my mind slowly closed down in rhythm to the last evening light diminishing into darkness. Pillows cushioning my drooping head was a siren’s call impossible to refuse.

This morning, however, for whatever reason, all thoughts of “past” and “future” have been forgotten and I find myself firmly planted in the “present” and firmly caught up in an exuberance of being with “today’s life” as it deliciously falls around me in honeyed waves of pure delight.

These photos, one looking west toward Roaring Beach and the other looking north east out over the Roaring Beach water catchment, convey the morning’s crispness and clarity, but not the full sensual quality of its richness.

Six cockatoos fly squawking into the valley, four surfers are letting out screams of joy while riding the breaking dawn waves and the subtle fragrance of thousands of coastal flowers hang in the air. A chorus of banjo frogs provides light entertainment.

As I hold onto the preciousness of this moment, I also think of the Greenpeace tree sitters in the Styx Valley and my heart flies out to them in a joyous exhalation of praise for their brave work in defending this earth.

Maybe mornings are meant for the living, while evenings are for the living remembering their past.

Maybe this is why we tell stories around a fire under the cloak of night where the physical reality and powerful stimulus of this earth is shut out.