Life on the Edge

The day before Jeannie Mooney left to return to America after staying at Windgrove for nearly six weeks as a visiting artist, she unwrapped the fabric that had been placed around a silver peppermint tree during her time here. The stains left on the cloth will give her a starting point at her studio at Cranbrook.

On the way to the airport I asked Jeannie to sum up her visit in one sentence: "Tasmania is now woven into the whole cloth of my 'understory' with the bittersweetness of her immense beauty and sadness."

Myself and all her new friends will miss Jeannie and her abundant enthusiasm to engage people with her deep love for this earth.

********************** Windgrove is known as a "Refuge for Learning". Currently in Australia there is much debate about refugees and our government's treating them as though they were criminals.

I offer the following poem by Marge Piercy as a way of looking at "the other" in order to gain some insight into the difficulties faced by refugees. Out of compassion we will be better able to create a peaceful world.


Maggid

The courage to let go of the door, the handle.
The courage to shed the familiar walls whose very
stains and leaks are comfortable as the little moles
of the upper arm; stains that recall a feast,
a child's naughtiness, a loud blattering storm
that slapped the roof hard, pouring through.

The courage to abandon the graves dug into the hill,
the small bones of children and the brittle bones
of the old whose marrow hunger had stolen;
the courage to desert the tree planted and only
begun to bear; the riverside where promises were
shaped; the street where their empty pots were broken.

The courage to leave the place whose language you learned
as early as your own, whose customs however dangerous
or demeaning, bind you like a halter
you have learned to pull inside, to move your load;
the land fertile with the blood spilled on it;
the roads mapped and annotated for survival.

The courage to walk out of the pain that is known
into the pain that cannot be imagined,
mapless, walking into the wilderness, going
barefoot with a canteen into the desert;
stuffed in the stinking hold of a rotting ship
sailing off the map into dragons' mouths,

Cathay, India, Siberia, goldeneh medina,
leaving bodies by the way like abandoned treasure.
So they walked out of Egypt. So they bribed their way
out of Russia under loads of straw; so they steamed
out of the bloody smoking charnelhouse of Europe
on overloaded freighters forbidden all ports --

out of pain into death or freedom or a different
painful dignity, into squalor and politics.
We Jews are all born of wanderers, with shoes
under our pillows and a memory of blood that is ours
raining down. We honor only those Jews who changed
tonight, those who chose the desert over bondage
who walked into the strange and became strangers
and gave birth to children who could look down
on them standing on their shoulders for having
been slaves. We honor those who let go of every-
thing but freedom, who ran, who revolted, who fought,
who became other by saving themselves.

A picnic table glistening with water might signify a washed out lunch for some people, but today it represents the difference between plants and animals dying or making it through this long, dry summer. Waking up this morning to the first spits of rain on the roof was a real blessing. And, I carried this sense of blessing down to the beach for swim #117 as I gazed out at the gently breaking greenish surf under a continuous grey blanket of cloud feeling a wonderful sense of relief. Floating like the storm clumps of broken seaweed found around me and gazing directly into and onto the surface spatterings of gentle rain drops, time lulled sleepily everywhere. Today, the recreational aspect of swimming that had been the norm during the summer's "perfect" weather, was replaced with a deeper experience; a more ritualized, meditative immersion of body into water.

Author Bill Bryson (Sunburned Country, A Walk in the Woods) spent an afternoon here at Windgrove gathering information for an upcoming National Geographic article on Tasmania. Yes, he was impressed with the Peace Garden and Peace Fire and landscape, but I spent most of my time making sure that he fully understood the seriousness of the damage being done to Tasmania by the collusion between the Labor government, Forestry Tasmania and Gunns. I did not paint a pretty picture.

When Bill asked me what I thought of the premier of Tasmania, Jim Bacon, I responded: "A politician willing to squander the wealth of the state's natural assests simply because he has neither the intellect nor wisdom to recognize the potential that is uniquely Tasmania. He gives lip service to the arts, eco tourism, inclusive government and the Tasmanian Together process, but only because some spin doctor has told him this would be good for his image. The tragedy for the people of Tasmania is that he lacks any depth of understanding of what he is ruining."

Tasmania's government has made its corporatised forestry department, Forestry Tasmania, exempt from the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conversation Act, the Threatened Species Act, the Freedom of Information Act, and our state's own Resource Management and Planning System. Is this not corrupt or what? And Tasmania is the only state that sets out to poison its own native animals. "Clean and green?"

On Forestry Tasmania, I said that under the directorship of Evon Rolley, the old growth rain forests have been clearfelled and destroyed with a demonic enthusiam equal only to the immorality of the fire bombing of Dresden. In their drive to make Tasmania the toilet paper center of the world, they are willing to sacrifice, not only the hundreds of thousands of animals and plant species living in the diverse habitate of our old growth forests, but also the thousands of employment opportunities related to boat building, honey production, the furniture industry, the arts, true eco-tourism, organic farming, scientific research and land management. If this is supposely world's best practice, it doesn't say much for the world.

On Gunns, I said that their immense profits are only because of the insistance of the government to turn a blind eye to the ecological and economic damage being done to our natural heritage. The money being paid out to the share holders and the board of directors comes from the government and Forestry Tasmania handing over the keys to the bank vaults and walking away from their responsibility to protect, preserve and promote this increasingly tarnished golden island.

Bill Bryson loved his visit to Windgrove.

It is 2 o'clock on a Saturday afternoon. The temperature is nearing 100 degrees and the air is acrid with smoke. All day yesterday I prepared for the worse by checking the working conditions of two fire pumps, organized four fire hoses, cut and hauled away brush too near the house, climbed up on the roof to clean out the gutters, and otherwise, did my best to fire proof the buildings of Windgrove. The above photo was taken of last night's sun set. What looks like cloud is actually smoke from two separate major forest/bush fires. There is an eerie beauty to the sun and its red reflection on the water, but this sort of beauty I'll leave for the smog of Los Angeles.

Sometimes even a Peace Fire has to suffer getting wet. Hopefully, underneath the galvanized cover that acts like a slow combustion wood heater, a few logs are smoldering away, sheltered from the sprinkler, just waiting their chance to breath a little more oxygen. However, since there has been a Total Fire Ban across the whole state of Tasmania for the last two days, and I have chosen to honour this ban by not putting any new wood on an "exposed" fire, the Peace Fire's eternal flame might be reduced to just a few warm embers by the time the ban is lifted late tonight or tomorrow morning. No worries. If need be, there will be a ritual re-lighting.

Tas/maine/ia

Have you fallen in love with me yet?
You will.

And after I've gone,
you will long
for days,
and nights,
without end.

This weekend, people across the world will be holding peace rallies to try and demonstrate to their elected representatives that war in Iraq will not bring about an end to terrorism; rather it will only inflame the situation by sowing seeds that will cause unknown harm well into the future. Remember the Sorcerer's apprentice? Chopping up the broomstick to try and destroy it only created a thousand more brooms. Trying to destroy Saddam Hussein by killing Iraq's people will only create a thousand more terrorists. Today's photo shows a bird's eye view of the Windgrove Peace Mandala; a small tabletop sculpture comprised of nine blocks of wood (hundreds of years old). Carved and nestled into each eight inch by eight inch block is a rounded beach stone. In the making of each piece, I meditated on the thought that these stones are full of ancient time and wisdom; that instead of throwing stones at each other. we might consider them as sacred icons of our past. I'm not saying to worship these stones; rather, see them as a visual, felt link to a collective distant story out of which all of us, all living beings emerged. To contribute to the world peace movement, I am keeping the middle block and stone and sending the other eight to various parts of the world (Germany, England and America) as a way of "spreading" peace. These stones will be "out there", but linked back to the Windgrove Peace Garden as part of a global, extended family. Besides being beautiful, art can be transformative and deepening. Yes, the peace mandala looks good and is interactive and fun to play with by moving the blocks around. But cup a smooth stone in the palm of your hand. Feel its weight. Listen to its story; its unique journey across thousands of years. Whether as a group of nine blocks, or just singly, these little stone/peace altars are about "teaching" how to "transform" our lives so that we might choose to move along the path of peace instead of war. It is about extended time, respecting our elders, listening to the past, loving the earth with its diversity of species, and, being passionate about all of life so that there will be a future worthy of living in. It is about creating a global circle of peace.

Even though Windgrove is most known for its Peace Garden, there is a small veggie garden consisting of two possum proof, chicken wired domes. Inside today's photo can be seen silver beet, spinach, tomatoes, snow peas, regular beets, and several types of lettuce. Despite strong winds and constant exposure to salt spray, everything is growing just fine. Two enthusiastic people from California, Ginny Evans and Tyson Atwell, stayed here for two weeks to get this garden happening. They were the first unofficial woofers (willing workers on organic farms) to stay at Windgrove. Living in the Peace Bus and joining in on the preparation of meals and swimming at Roaring Beach, it was a definite win-win for everyone.