Flora

Iatrogenesis — meaning ‘brought forth by the healer’ — is the term used to describe the negative outcome inadvertently caused by any treatment designed to heal a patient. A simple example is the potential kidney damage done by drugs used to relieve back pain.

Let’s extend the definition of ‘iatrogenesis’ to include environmental damage caused by the pesticides that are used to control, well, pests. People are slowly waking up to the fact that their ground water, air and lives are slowly becoming contaminated because of the heavy usage of agricultural chemicals on the land. Remember DDT, Rachel Carson and bird eggs? What was seen as a boon to healthier crops turned out to have negative unhealthy side effects.

And, what was visibly obvious last week, is that a form of iatrogenesis has occurred even here at Windgrove.

I have been trying to “heal” the ravaged landscape at Windgrove for 18 years and, as the supposed “healer” of this land, have used over 15,000 plastic tree guard bags in the process (some trees get a 2nd or 3rd bag). The photo of the truck shows 1,750 of these collected tree bags in 14 large, orange garden leaf bags.

Each orange bag holds around 125 non-degradable plastic tree guard bags that were originally used to protect the young seedling trees from exposure to the wind and browsing animals (wallabies and rabbits). When the trees get sufficiently tall these bags are no longer useful and have to be removed, but because they have to be cut from the tree they can’t be re-used.

When I realized that nine truck loads of this size will be going to the tip (refuse dump) to deposit all those tree bags that were used to help heal this land, it gave me pause to think about the indirect consequences of my “healing” practices in that these bags will never, ever, decompose and will remain in the environment forever.

And the problem isn’t as simple as “just don’t use the bags anymore”. I tried going bag-less this year when neighbour Steve and I put up circular fencing to keep the browsers out and didn’t use any bags on the seedling trees (see blog September 5). I saved on the long term damage of plastic, but the tender seedling trees are now suffering a bit from the salt spray and, recently, gale force winds.

Yet, in the end, I suppose I just have to come to the conclusion that no matter what my good intentions might be, there will always be some negative outcomes that have to be balanced into the equation.

If nothing else, the removal of the bags provided Steve and I with more than a few positively charged moments by being out doors, in the sun, among the happy trees. Who could blame us, despite our causing some harm to the environment, to jump for joy at our chosen job site?

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Throughout the whole of Saturday a light mist steadfastly fell upon the landscape. Looking over the tops of yellow-green native currant bushes and up towards the she-oak drizzle shrouded hill, I rejoiced on the goodness of this timely soak.

Earlier in the week the long range weather forecast had predicted a Saturday rain, so, on Monday and Tuesday my workmate Steve and I (mostly Steve) erected a new form of wallaby defense to deter the hungry creatures from constantly ravaging the young trees (see squashed blue bags from previous, protective attempts).

On Thursday, I drove to the native plant nursery and purchased 400 seedling trees, and Friday, starting at 7AM and working alone on a wonderfully sunny and meditative day, I managed to put in 320 of them before my body called quits around 5PM and I headed off to a “two-box” epsom salt soak in the outdoor tub.

Hard work. Gosh, yes. But there’s something immensely satisfying about this sort of physical labor that no matter how exhausting, it uplifts one’s spirit to such a degree that the soreness doesn’t really matter.

The [Mayan] Tzutujil never assumed that the sun would shine again the following day or that they wouldn’t disappear and another life form take their place. They did, however, know that if they were to continue on the Earth, the losses that they as humans caused to Nature and their own natures were voids that dangerously undermined the very matrix of the universe of which they were part and which gave them life.

The villagers knew that what defined a person as a complete human was our ability to fill those hollow places with sacrifices equivalent to the chunks we pried from the surrounding nature to feed our children.

The sacrifice that made humans useful to the world were the sacrifices of offerings made with what only humans had, namely the product of their magnificent opposable thumbs and the songlike eloquence of their human speech, upon which the Gods who also magically made tangible life with their speech were fed and made drunk and ecstatic. The ecstasy of Nature and the Gods was the fertile tree-filled exuberance of the land.

from Stealing Benefacio’s Roses, by Martin Prechtel

Down, up. Down, up. Three hundred and twenty times, down then up. For every tree planted I knelt down as though on a grass prayer rug, and, close enough to kiss the earth, gently nudged the root ball into its hole and new home using my “opposable thumbs”.

Not once, as I put them one-by-one into the ground, did it seem cheesy or spiritual-lite to say a little prayer for each tree’s health and well being and beauty and happiness.

Over the 18 years that I have been re-foresting what was once a barren paddock, there have been over 7,500 native trees and shrubs planted out, or approximately one for each day that I have lived at Windgrove. This I call my Windgrove Earth Tithing. This is my repayment to mother earth for whatever I have used or cajoled from her to sustain my life. This is a small portion of a larger debt owed for the mis-use and degradation of her soil.

On this rainy day, this is my way of saying thanks for her beneficence.

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