From the category archives:

Peace Garden

A Christmas gift

December 30, 2009

My replication of Goldsworthy’s “sticks-in-the-air” is in celebration of finally having some 500 plastic bags and 2000 bamboo sticks removed from trees near the Peace Garden Pond. Trees that formed the bottom portion of a gigantic keyhole symbol (if viewed from the air). To do this required the generous international cooperation of people born in [...]

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Daily maintenance

March 10, 2006

Maintain: to continue, persevere in; to carry on, keep up; to keep in being; to sustain by nourishment. Maintenance: the action of maintaining. The interesting thing, for me, is that the etymology of “maintain” is rooted in the Latin “hand” (manus) plus “to hold” (tenere). Again and again the physical world is the basis for [...]

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Keep breathing

November 5, 2004

The shiny, reflective, inner beauty of the Split Rock only came about after the whole was broken open. Your heart is now thus. The pain of the American and Australian elections can lead us to a deeper wisdom, a deeper compassion, a deeper love for all of life. These winds that seem endless and, at [...]

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A true leader

September 27, 2004

My first intention today was to write about the fur seal that swam within meters of me this past Saturday with a grace and ease that I could only wish for. I changed my mind when, this afternoon, I came upon a wombat in broad daylight and, seeing his comical gait, I wanted to share [...]

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Easter cave

April 10, 2004

Good Friday and Easter are reminders, even for non-Christians, of the importance of allowing oneself to venture into the “cave”; into darkness, mystery and the unknown. Three days seemingly dead and then a rebirth. Just like the moon when it disappears from view for three days, only to reappear as a thin crescent of hope [...]

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A green peace

February 9, 2004

As one walks into the Peace Garden there is a sign that explains to the public various aspects of the sculptural elements around the pond. The top of the sign reads thus: The third “peace” is concerned with how we humans interact and make a sustainable connection with the natural world around us. This could [...]

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Reflections

October 16, 2003

Stationed between the Ancestral Midden and the Spiral of Hope, the Split Rock is a six ton hunk of stone sawn in two with each inside half polished. The symbolism of its initial concept was to make visual the dynamics behind the deep weathering of our personal character by the forces of life. When one [...]

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Styx lesson

July 1, 2003

Curled up in bed this morning — a morning of cold, wet and grey — I couldn’t help but feel slightly depressed about the ongoing destruction of Tasmania’s old growth forests. Especially now that the government has both lifted a moratorium against logging in the Tarkine, the world’s largest remaining tract of temperate rain forest, [...]

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A visible “Long Now”

June 3, 2003

I like how the evening shadow of the Peace Garden’s Spiral acts like a large sideral sun dial as it casts itself over the pond towards either the Ancestral Midden or the Split Rock. There is a slow, six month journey of the shadow between the two sets of stones. During the month of June [...]

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