Personal

Twenty one years ago — against the advice of many well meaning friends — I purchased 100 acres of coastal land south of Hobart at the same time as quitting a tenured teaching position at the University of Tasmania. Thus, in pursuit of a full time 24/7 connection to an actual landscape/waterscape/skyscape, rather than the citified, intellectualized, institutionalized, romanticized view of nature, I ventured onto and into a whole new way of being.

It is one thing to be a student of the environment whilst ensconced in the cultural safety net of urban living. Quite another to abandon this altogether and come face to face with one’s maker on a daily and nightly basis. The first four years were without electricity, telephone, TV, radio, running water or any other “convenience” associated with “civilized” living.

As with any journey of discovery into the unknown, the initial “price” paid for the privilege of living so closely with the earth slowly moved away from the deficit side of the ledger. With each ensuing year, whether it be psychic income or creative/artistic income or emotional income or relational income, all gained momentum. Today, the balance sheet of my small yet sweet life sits comfortably in surplus.

Not that the rains of sadness, grief and pain don’t shower down anymore. They still do. But the ability — and willingness — to remain out in the rain comes with a certain sense of well being attached to contentment.

Soaking in a perfumed bath at the end of a “Work” day, whilst water droplets trickle down eucalypt leaves unto on my wrinkled face, is the just reward gained for perseverance, patience and loving.

Being bathed by the water element in an atmosphere of water is a luxury and privilege known only to those willing to abandon all.

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The full moon fell onto the dining room table where hours earlier I had been re-oiling some small sculptures.

As I walked past dreamily in the wee hours before first dawn, a moment of peace overwhelmed my tender and suffering soul and I had to sit down to take in the pleasure of this felt contentment; of this pure happiness.

Happiness from the root “hap” to be present with what is happening despite any and all difficulties.

During the week the ongoing chaos of three major projects — each with their ongoing difficulties — would exhaust my creative self and lead me to question why it was I felt compelled to manifest these rather large, possibly unnecessary big visions.

The garden enclosure was beginning to look more like an industrialized garage for parked galvanized dirt filled tubs than for anything growing except for some garlic.

The tennis court was already into its third month of construction and into its third attempt at leveling due to seepage problems and inadvertently buried root balls that had to be dug up.

And in the studio, the sculpture started half a year ago in April, was far from completed and proving a technical challenge to carve.

And yet, and yet. There are those moments when gratitude floats down around my soul and the zest for the artist’s life boots up again.

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Yesterday morning and the day woke up with clear skies. Calm was evident on the mirrored surface of the Peace Garden pond. A frosty nip in the air spelled excitement across my face.

But half way around the world in Aurora, Colorado? What were people there waking up to? And in Oslo, Norway? In Rwanda? In Zimbabwe? In …?

Sixteen years ago I wrote a short piece about a similar tragedy that fell out of the sky onto our community.

Port Arthur

One can never know for certain that the blessedness felt today will be upon us tomorrow. So, how do we survive the change, the ebbing tide? And what sustains us when the moon of our being moves into those voids of the unknown, totally lost? Who or what can pull us out?

It is April 1996, the last Sunday. Morning has such a serene sweetness to it that I can be seen in my studio, not hunched over the work at hand, but looking out over the she-oak and sagg pastured landscape so absorbed into it that I just stand there doing nothing. It is a delicious meditation. Early afternoon and I am on the beach idly poking around rocks and tidal pools with a tranquility that borders on sleep.

Then the helicopters start to fly past, low and directly overhead. From Hobart towards, I guess, Port Arthur. And then back again. Then again, and again like something out of Vietnam. Not having a telephone, I walk to my nearest neighbour’s house out of curiosity. No one at home. Nor at another neighbour’s house. Roaring Beach Road, normally busy on a warm, Sunday afternoon, has absolutely no traffic on it. Back home I do the very unusual and listen to the 6 o’clock news on the truck radio.

My world in an instant unravels; its goodness vanquished by the murders of 35 people. Amongst people I know — three dead and one seriously wounded. And, as if to make the darkness darker, the next day I learn of the suicide of a friend.

A long, very long month later I wake up early, before dawn, with the full moon slapping me on the face. Knowing that I will not get back to sleep, I dress warmly and climb to the top of the hill back of the bus and out to a cliff edge that rises 200 meters above the waters of Storm Bay and the Southern Ocean. I say a prayer for the Port Arthur victims.

Sitting down, I watch the yellow-orange moon with its watery shaft slowly descend way to the south-west behind Bruny Island. In the pregnant half hour of half light before the full dawn, I continue to remain motionless, content to watch the landscape and seascape and sky-scape awake to a new day and allow myself the pleasure of immersion into its beauty. Deep within, the beginnings of a heart purr are felt.

Then… right at eye level just a few meters out in front of me on its early morning breakfast run, a white breasted sea eagle ever so majestically floats past on grand, outstretched wings.

For an instant and in that moment only, the “I” and “Thou” merge and I have the sensation that I am observing myself. Myself the hungry eagle and the thunderous cloud; the fruiting tree, the sea’s water. All is One.

The awesome beauty and pain of life becomes inextricably linked and all seems just. Those nights that I woke up crying after Port Arthur were as much a part of life as this beautiful dawn. The great Wheel contains it all and I am intimately fused onto it.

Within a few seconds I lose the ability to hold onto this truth, but I feel, none the less, blest. On this particular Sunday morning, nature has given me a sermon on the mount. I have tasted of the sacrament and it is good. With the sun beginning to warm up my backside, I understand that a new day has begun; that a hearty breakfast waits for me, too; that there is honest work to be done in the healing of this planet, friends to gather round and play to be had.

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How to Bloom

The almond trees in bloom: all we can accomplish here is to ever know ourselves in our earthly appearance.

I endlessly marvel at you, blissful ones — at your demeanor,
the way you bear your vanishing adornment with timeless purpose.
Ah, to understand how to bloom; then would the heart be carried
beyond all milder dangers, to be consoled in the great one.

Rilke

This past week tiny, tiny mushrooms, about half an inch tall, pushed through the burden of soiled gravity into the embrace of sunlight.

While not the almond tree blossoms that Rilke writes about, there is a semblance of “timeless purpose” in these wee mushrooms’ demeanor. A demeanor that leans with a gentle ache into the soft light. A gentle ache that speaks of their all too quick vanishing adornment even as they bow in grateful prayer.

In the above photo there is also a sense of a shared existence. A communion of purpose, so to speak.

In a recent reply to a friend’s question, I wrote: “You asked if I’m happy back on my land. Yes. Everyday I feel a hugh gratefulness to be surrounded with so much dynamic beauty. Always amazing. If there is a negative, it is that I don’t want to hide out in the woods alone. There’s something here that needs be shared. Hence, the open house.”

The open house referred to happened last Friday about the same time the mushrooms were emerging. A small group of seven people turned up at Windgrove for several hours to dialogue on a subject dear to my heart:  “How “artistic behaviour” is so vital in creating a world that is environmentally sustainable, socially just and spiritually fulfilling”.

Was it a success? I can only hint at an answer this with a quote from the book ‘Active Hope’ by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone.

“We can never know whether our actions will have a decisive impact. What we can know is that by supporting one another, we make this possibility more likely.”

In the end, although our time on this earth is as fleeting as any wee mushroom, it behoves us to tend to, in as loving and caring a way as possible, the ongoing nurturing of this earth so that the wee ones following us have as much chance to bloom as we did.

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To seek change takes courage. The old system doesn’t want to let loose of its grip anytime soon. None more so than within one’s own life.

I took a walk out to the “Point” the other evening. Sitting down, I watched the sun break through clouds that for most of the day had drizzled soft welcoming rain. In the quiet of the evening light a deep gratitude washed over me to have been blessed with this property Windgrove and the life I’m able to experience here.

But it didn’t just fall into my lap. It took listening — really listening to and heeding — the “still, small voice” that resides within all of us. A voice, though, that is generally pushed aside because of ……. well, any number of seemingly “rational” reasons.

Around this time twenty years ago in 1991, I purchased a 100 acre barren, sheep ravaged parcel of coastal land and threw in my tenured position at the School of Art, University of Tasmania, in order to strike out on an unknown path that I had absolutely no idea where it would lead to other than it would deepen and transform myself and my life’s Work in a big, big way.

At the time all I had to go on was a gut feeling that I needed to leave “the system” if I were to make full use of my pledge made the previous New Year to: “Be of service”.

This would not be a weekend hike in the woods. It would be a complete re-write of the societal script I, as a westerner, was born to follow.

Most of my friends cautioned against the move. Many felt I was suffering from a middle age crisis brought on by the burning down of my house nine months earlier. Who in their rational mind, they argued, would, at the age of 45, quit a very sought after university position and move to a remote block of land far from the capital city Hobart?

Despite their protestations, I wanted to trust my gut instincts, but some residual uncertainty did cling to my waking mind. One night a very clear, unambiguous dream made me wake up feeling totally assured of the correctness of this audacious act.

The following is the story of the dream that gave me a complete confirmation of my heart’s decision.

The whole dream takes place in the building where I had taught for seven years. A simple explanation of its architecture is a four story roofed building surrounding an atrium courtyard. Classrooms and studios ring the outside walls. Between the 1st and 2nd levels is a glass dome. The upper levels look down upon the glass dome.

In the dream:

I am on the ground floor of the art school expressing the wish to leave, but three, then four, then five anonymous men dressed in grey suits start coming towards me voicing displeasure. I walk to the stairwell and ascend to the next floor.

Looking around me I see eight, then a few more men coming towards me telling me in louder and louder voices “You can’t leave this institution. It is forbidden.” I walk to the stairwell and ascend to the 3rd level.

There are many more men this time. In fact, they are coming out of all the classrooms all around the walkway; the walkway that looks down upon the glass dome. Their voices are increasingly getting louder and more strident. It is also getting darker. I walk to the stairwell and ascend to the 4th and top level.

There are now about 100 grey suited men coming from everywhere, now screaming: “You must stop this foolishness. You must remain here. You must remain one of us. We will get you in the end.”

As they press forward I have no where left to go. It is very dark in the building. I look slowly around face to face, eye ball to eye ball, at these sad, lifeless men and know full well I would rather leap to my death than surrender to their deadness. Without hesitation I climb on top of the guard rail, stand for moment and then push off with all my strength into a beautiful swan dive with arms outstretched in complete surrendered abandonment and plummet to the glass dome three floors below.

I smash into the glass with such force that thousands upon thousands of shards are splintered everywhere. Simultaneously, a thick, soft, velvety red curtain drape appears and I wrap my arms around it.

The drape — like when a theatre curtain falls between acts — lowers me in a standing position to the ground. As a dog shakes water off its back, I shake off the many bits of glass. There is a door. I open it and walk outside to a sun filled, tree filled, very green landscape to begin the next phase of my life.

Several months later, with a badly constructed mile and a half driveway, only candles for light, no phone, no running water and no flush toilet, I knew Death driving around in his shiny black stretch limousine looking at a suburban map detailing linear streets, white picket fences, tidy lawns and 2.5 children would have great difficulty finding me in my camouflaged bus. Great difficulty, indeed.