Life on the Edge

I thought the day was going to be fairly straight forward, easy and relatively light-hearted. Just use the Subaru to carry fencing material out near the cliff where Glenn, Sally and I would build a protective barrier against the wallabies. The sun was shining, the wind non existent. Perfect. I hadn’t, however, accounted for the soft earth to sink the vehicle down to its axles. Especially a four wheel drive vehicle. Frustrating? Yes. Tiring? Yes. Time consuming? Yes. Ultimately defeating? No.

Every farmer or person who works the land has days like this. Unexpected floods, droughts, mechanical breakdowns or other events that plague the agenda of any day. The struggle is always there.

When struggle comes, as struggle does to every life, it’s never easy to go on. It often seems that not going on at all would be the better thing. The easier thing. The only possible thing. Pressures from outside us, pressures from within, hang heavy on our shoulders, weigh us down, and dampen our hearts. Then the spirit is taxed beyond belief. Then all the pious little nosegays we’ve ever learned turn to sand. Then we begin to question: What is the use of all this pain? What is the purpose of all this struggle?.....  And yet we sense that the way we deal with struggle has something to do with the very measure of the self, with the whole issue of what it is to be a spiritual person.

I could go on and talk about the bigger struggles I have with the world or of Tasmanian politics or with my own dark demons. But I also face a form of struggle with every tree planted at Windgrove and how I deal with this struggle is also a lesson in dealing with life’s other struggles.

For the past 17 years an effort is made every August to reforest those areas of land that were stripped clear of vegetation during the time Windgrove’s land was used for sheep grazing. It has never been as easy as in “plant a tree and watch it grow”. It’s been more like: “Let’s put in 500 trees, see how they do and then try to do better”. Well, this year “doing better” is bringing in 300 metres of chicken wire and 60 two metre long steel “star pickets”. About $1,000 worth. Since 1992 I have been trying to plant out this cliff face with the hope that it would create a windbreak for other trees on its leeward side. The trees planted—boobyalla and she-oaks—do grow, but the ever hungry wallabies have always outwitted any previous attempt to curtail their access to the young seedlings’ succulent leaves.

Well, with patience and the collective effort of six hands, three brains and four hearts, the car made it out of the mud and the fence got built. My fingers are crossed that this latest defensive effort will work. If not, I figure I still have a few more plans up my sleeve. 

The great secret of life is how to survive struggle without succumbing to it, how to bear struggle without being defeated by it, how to come out of great struggle better than when we found ourselves in the midst of it.

The essence of struggle is neither endurance nor denial. The essence of struggle is the decision to become new rather than simply to become older. It is the opportunity to grow either smaller or larger in the process.

All quotes from Joan D. Chittister’s book, Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope

Gabi Mocatta, a freelance photo journalist, came by yesterday to gather information for an upcoming story about Windgrove. Even though it had been a month since I had last walked the land, I didn’t want to confine myself to the house for the interview as it is easier for me to talk more articulately and passionately while actually out on the land, i.e., the stories reveal themselves while the feet traverse the “song lines” (so to speak). I, therefore, took a punt and walked the whole two kilometre Peace Path—the first time since my operation.

I could go on and tell you what we talked about as we slowly walked this great headland, but I would rather retell the following story that took place some six years ago about a man who “accidentally” visited Windgrove.

His name was Chris and he was one of the carpenters who, in l986, helped build the house I designed and lived in near Hobart until it burned down in a bush fire in 1991. He happened to be driving through Nubeena and, when he drove past the Roaring Beach road sign he felt, he said, “a strong urge to turn down the road and see the beach”. Then, when he saw my name posted at our driveway entrance, he felt compelled again to turn in to see if this “Peter Adams” was the man he worked with in 1986.

When Chris, along with his wife June, knocked on the door I invited them in, but first asked that they remove their shoes as there is a “no shoes” policy. Chris laughingly said he would do this, but only if he was allowed to remove his leg as well—he had lost his foot and half a leg in a motorbike accident and the shoe was screwed onto the wooden leg.

Over tea we began sharing what each of us had been up to over the years. When Chris asked about the spiral he saw driving in, I described the various concepts behind the Windgrove Garden, especially the one concerning the need for each individual to personally find an inner peace, as Chris and I were both painfully aware that our mutual friend Phil, who had supervised the construction of the house, had committed suicide a few years earlier.

Chris turned to me and calmly said: “You know, Peter, I died twice in the past year and I know what it means to lose all faith in life and then have the courage to find it again. A year ago I had a quadruple heart bypass and for awhile in the hospital I was clinically dead. Afterward, for months on end I was in such physical pain with my leg, broken rib cage and fused spinal column, that I set about planning my own suicide and was within days of carrying it out when June found out about it. Through her committed love, she brought me around to life again. Today, I still have to struggle with the physical and emotional traumas of life, but I also have a much deeper love for life, my family and my friends and I am willing to engage in this process, this journey I am on. My concerns are not about any ultimate destination, but just being present today of where my feet are on the path of discovery.”

After so much talking, it seemed important to, at least, take Chris over to the Peace Garden and maybe do a portion of the Peace Walk. None of us were sure whether Chris would have the physical strength to make the full two kilometres, so we just agreed to go from bench to bench, willing to turn back if necessary.

Over and over again, Chris kept exclaiming how utterly beautiful everything was. There were pockets of fog and mist in the valleys, on the hill tops and up the cliff faces. The sun broke through constantly creating glistening water diamonds on the leaves and needles of the trees and magic rainbows appeared everywhere. At the Point, a sea eagle perched on a nearby branch and a wedge tail eagle spiralled up from the middle circle. Chris was so enraptured by the vista and his own growing sense of well being that he kept pushing on. Slowly, we walked and talked and, eventually, we did the whole circuit in around three hours. When we said our good-byes, Chris added: “You have no idea how special this day has been. What you have done here is create a healing environment.”

And that took place six years ago. Yesterday, with the photo journalist Gabi and her partner Phil, I also walked slowly around the whole path and, at the end, felt renewed and “truly on the mend”. This land is a powerful, healing place. This single aspect is what I hope Gabi both felt and will write about.

I want to tell what the forests
were like

poem, “Witness”, W.S. Merwin

Still fuming after writing last week’s blog entry about the Labor Party in Australia giving short shift to their traditional allies, the environment movement, I wrote an article for the widely read Australian online political news journal, Crikey. This was published yesterday (Monday) and is posted beneath today’s photo shown below.

But first, for any American readers and others not familiar with the Australian system of voting, let me point out, in an overly simplistic way, a couple of things.

1. There is in Australia a system of voting that is “preferential”. Under this style of voting, the voter will vote for all the candidates on the ballot sheet by numbering them from “one” to “five” (if there are five candidates).  If their first choice doesn’t have enough votes to win, then their vote goes to their second choice, etc. Back in 2000, if America had such a system, then Gore would have become president as the Ralph Nader vote would have eventually gone over to Gore (assuming that the Green vote “preferenced” Gore ahead of Bush).

2. Of the two major political parties, the present Liberal Party is similar to the Republican Party and very much aligned with the worst of the Bush policies. The Labor Party is somewhat similar to the Democrats, but is becoming increasingly more right wing. Scary.

It’s tough being in a minor political party like the Greens, but it is all the more tough when one feels that our views are being ignored at the expense of the health of the planet. Despite climate change coming off the back burner and now front and centre of a lot of debate, the people who for years have constantly led the debate—the environmental movement— are effectively being shunted aside by the major political parties who only see them as a threat to their power base rather than talented people who just might have some answers to the perplexing questions of how to address the myriad of problems presented by climate change.

Make no mistake about it. Although in the article below I talk about forestry issues, these same issues are intimately linked to the climate change debate. As far as I am concerned, neither major political party understands what is at stake. They just don’t get it. When the next federal election takes place and I have to decide on how to preference my votes, I will most certainly feel as though I’m between a rock and a hard spot as to what decision to make. It sucks.

A Green preference vote to the Liberal Party?

Since becoming an Australian citizen in 1996 I have exercised my right to vote ticking either the Green or Labor boxes and preferencing accordingly. Never did I give the Liberal candidates a second thought, nor imagine that I ever would. Now, though, with Rudd’s extremely regressive forest policy, this looks to be the year that the Liberal team gets preferenced ahead of Labor.

Being spit in the face by Rudd and Garrett would generally not be enough to force a change of thinking as the Labor Party traditionally has been more “liberal” in its platforms and more “voter friendly” than the Liberal Party. But, pride aside, and as unfathomable as it seems (even to myself), I’ve become increasingly scared that Rudd and his team will be more ruinous on Tasmania than Howard ever was.

All my philosophical arguments for world peace, social and environmental justice, and economic sanity, are based around the simple Thoreau dictum: “In wildness is the preservation of the world”. With a solid majority of the world’s climate scientists understanding this, with more and more economists and corporate leaders understanding this, with the public increasingly aware of the importance of the environment in the health and wealth generation of our local and global societies, and, with even the more conservative, Weekend Australian, publishing a long article on Tasmania titled: “Logging itself into oblivion”, it is astounding to have Rudd and the Federal Labor policy makers give the environment (hence, jobs) a total write off. To say that this is insulting to every progressive thinker in Australia is an understatement.

Yes, I am very well aware of the Liberal Party’s social and environmental policies and how mean spirited they have been for the past ten years. However, with Rudd at the helm of a team of anti-environmentalists headed by Julia Gillard, Michael O’Connor, Kerry O’Brien and Dick Adams in Canberra along with the mendacious CFMEU, Paul Lennon, Gunns and the pro-logging mob down in Tasmania, I fear the worst for those of us left down here trying to protect, not only our fast diminishing native forests and prime agricultural farmlands, but any semblance of what remains of ethical democracy. And it is this latter component—erosion of democracy—that I worry about most.

Michael O’Connor of the CFMEU (construction, forestry, mining and electrical union) is on Labor’s national executive and is best mate with Julia Gillard, Premier Lennon and Gunns’ John Gay. If Federal Labor teams up with State Labor and O’Connor’s “hate the Greenie” union, any hope of an economic renaissance in Tasmania based upon the brand of “clean, green and intelligent” will be bulldozed into oblivion. The further entrenchment of a Lennon style bad boy’s government will spell disaster for enlightened governance.

There is no questioning that Howard, along with Eric Abetz in Tasmania, has been a nightmare. But to vote Labor just because one wants to get rid of one form of cancer, will only serve to replace within the body politic a more aggressive form of cancer. This I can’t stomach.

Call it tough love, or whatever, but I would rather have four more years of the little sh_t Howard, than a possible ten years being dictated to and governed by a union whose understanding of democracy and global climate change is limited to something out of the brutal dark ages. To get my vote back, Labor has to either dump the CFMEU or bring in those leaders and policy makers who truly, truly understand the total importance of a healthy environment in the making of a wealthy, just society.

My advice to the follower of Christ, Peter Garrett (opposition minister for the environment): “Get out of the Labor Party while you still have half a chance of obtaining a pass at the pearly gates.”

My advice to Rudd and Gillard is to put fridge magnets everywhere with this quote from global explorer, Peter Matthiessen: “In the forgetting that we, too, are animals, a part of nature, as dependent on its health and balance as any other mammal, we foolishly permit the unrestrained industrial erosion and poisoning of our Earth habitat that promises to leave mankind as desolate and bereft of hope as a turtle stripped live from its shell”.

“In the forgetting that we, too, are animals, a part of nature, as dependent on its health and balance as any other mammal, we foolishly permit the unrestrained industrial erosion and poisoning of our Earth habitat that promises to leave mankind as desolate and bereft of hope as a turtle stripped live from its shell.”

I had just read this passage from Peter Matthiessen’s book on the Antarctic, “End of the Earth”, when I heard on the radio Kevin Rudd, the federal leader of the Labor Party, make a promise to the pro-logging forestry industry, that if elected Prime Minister of Australia at the upcoming election, he would not protect any more of Tasmania’s old growth rain forests.

I couldn’t believe my ears. After so much has been written about the importance of preserving what is left in the world of wild habitat, here was the leader of a major political party completely refuting the gathered scientific, economic, social and cultural evidence and caving into the bully tactics of a very small, yet powerful union of greedy retards (I use “retard” here in the sense of someone stupidly holding back growth towards a compassionate awareness). Just this past weekend there was an article about Tasmania in the national newspaper, The Australian, where the title, in big, bold letters proclaimed: Logging itself into oblivion. One sentence from the article conveys its essence: “The short-sighted trashing of what makes Tasmania attractive is economic and environmental vandalism.”

Rudd’s trip down to Tasmania yesterday to cement his cosy relationship with the corrupted state political leader, Paul Lennon, and his myrmidons in the logging union, has left those of us who care about this world scared that Rudd will be no different than Howard if he becomes Prime Minister of Australia. Such a shame. I hate to think that all the good work people everywhere have been doing to unseat John Howard (George Bush’s friend in creating even more world terror) will only be to put at the top of the trash pile just another charlatan with only the barest of credentials above the weasel Howard.

It’s terribly sad to be going to the polls to be voting for just “the lesser of two evils”. In a twisted demonic way, I almost wish Howard will win so that there might be, at least, a squiggle of hope that Labor’s next leader will truly understand the importance of the environment in protecting the wealth and health of this nation. With Rudd at the helm, the possibility of choice will be greatly diminished.

Still recovering from the pain of my recent hernia operation, I gaze out the window and am doubly pained by the sight of an empty bench that, although seemingly in the shadows, is floodlit with a radiant light. It speaks to me of the folly of humans and the possible slow demise of the human species because of this folly. All the world’s focus is, certainly, now upon us; we are at stage centre. Yet, in this global council of all beings, human beings seem forever willing to forfeit their right and obligation to be present at this council. We do this at our peril.

I want my torn body to heal and I want the torn relationship between humans and the rest of the living world to heal as well.

Like Peter Matthiessen:

“Therefore I seek to understand phenomena that might help our self-destroying species to appreciate the shimmering web of bio-diversity in the Earth process, the common miracles, fleeting as ocean birds, which present themselves endlessly to all our senses, to be tasted, experienced, and fiercely defended for our innocent inheritors against the rape and dreadful wasting of this beautiful and fragile biosphere and its resources.

With the type of politicians and corporate CEOs that currently make up the power structure of the world, this is a daunting task. Still, even though I respect that suffering is a condition of being human, misery is a choice. A choice I choose not to make. Remaining faithful to goodness is a better option. Out of this continuous struggle, hope is earned. The turtle may yet retain its shell.

Your cells are a country of ten thousand trillion citizens, each devoted in some intensively specific way to your overall well-being. There isn’t a thing they don’t do for you. They let you feel pleasure and form thoughts. They enable you to stand and stretch and caper. When you eat, they extract the nutrients, distribute the energy, and carry off the wastes—all those things you learned about in school biology—but they also remember to make you hungry in the first place and reward you with a feeling of well-being afterwards so that you won’t forget to eat again. They keep your hair growing, your ears waxed, you brain quietly purring. They manage every corner of your being. They will jump to your defence the instant you are threatened. They will unhesitatingly die for you—billions of them do so daily. And not once in all your years have you thanked even one of them. So let us take a moment now to regard them with the wonder and appreciation they deserve.

Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything

A week ago, last Wednesday, I went into surgery for a definite “inguinal hernia” operation on the right side of my groin with the possibility of a second one on the left side. Opening my eyes after the anaesthetic wore off, the surgeon said that he had actually performed a triple hernia operation with the third one being an “umbilical hernia”.

Initially, I was glad that all the holes had been patched and sewn up, but, as the invasive nature of the operation covered a wider than normal section of my belly, the pain associated with “one” hernia operation was multiplied by three, and, as the morphine’s soporific effect diminished, I more than once cursed the frailty of my body as I attempted to walk from the bed to the toilet; as, I attempted, even to pee. 

However (and here is why I started off with the Bill Bryson quote), as the days moved along and I could ease into the comfort of the fireside sofa more freely, I was able to look down onto my belly and not just see an ugly wound. Rather, it became an area of marvellous magic; a continuous healing machine working 24 hours, seven days a week to keep itself whole. The bruise, whilst seemingly not the prettiest thing to look at, is actually a very visual indication of the cells Bryson talks about doing their work. Isolating the bruise, as in the above photo, reveals a beautifully abstract “live” color-field painting that daily takes on different hues and patterns. The little wisps of black brush strokes are the re-emerging belly hairs; not yet curly, but definitely well on their way. The first days of anguish are now gone and I watch in fascination, and gratitude, as this vastly complex system rearranges itself back into health.

So, a round of applause to all those involved in this great group effort. First, to the billions of cells doing their thing so that I can continue doing my thing. Second, to the very skilful surgeon, Rob Bohmer, and the many nurses who took care of me while in hospital.  And, thirdly, to my partner, Sally, who not only has had the sole task of feeding and looking after my comfort levels here at Windgrove, but has also had to do all the daily chores around the place, including splitting two wheelbarrow loads of wood each day to keep the house fires burning these wintry days and nights.

Come to think of it, I’m beginning to like the cosiness of the sofa and all the attendant services. Maybe, I’ll fake the pain a bit, just to have one more tea and cake served with, yet another, kiss on the forehead. 

A year ago I used the above Amnesty International photo of a Sudanese refugee who was shot and wounded while defending his daughters from armed militia members who tried to rape them. Looking, then, at his eyes, I had asked “what is dead and what just might be green and moist, tender, loving, even hopeful?” Without the written explanation of what the photo is about, and just looking into the refugee’s eyes, it would be easy enough to intuit that this person was expressing some form of emotion. We might not know exactly what emotion, but it is axiomatic that humans are capable of and hold within themselves any of several types of emotions.

Can the same be said for my neighbour’s dog, Winnie, in the top photo? Having cared for and been witness to her many “human” moods from howling with gladness to sulking for not being allowed up on the couch, I would say she expresses and feels many emotions. Animal right’s activists would most likely agree with me, but does the scientific community?

Well, the answer is yes. Two American research scientists, who had presented papers at an international conference on animal behaviour in Hobart, visited Windgrove this past weekend and explained some of their latest findings. Each has a hugh pedigree of books to their names. The man with the green baseball cap is Marc Bekoff, whose latest book, The Emotional Lives of Animals, “blends extraordinary stories and anecdotes of animal grief, joy, embarrassment, anger, and love with the latest scientific research confirming the existence of emotions that common sense experience has long implied.”

In the Pleasurable Kingdom, Jonathan Balcombe (the bird watcher) sets out with rigourous scientific evidence to formally recognise that animals emote, not just pain and stress, but pleasure as well. “Animals feel good thanks to play, food, touch, sex, anticipation, comfort, aesthetics, and more.”

Bekoff and Balcombe and others are proving what animal lovers have known for generations. Better late, than never, yes? Out of this research, though, the question inevitably arises: what are the ethical ramifications for society? Can we continue with business, as usual? Not only can animal emotions teach us humans about love, empathy, and compassion, they require us to radically rethink our current relationship of domination and abuse of animals.

My only problem with Marc and Jonathan is this: before their Sunday visit my winter reading list was getting shorter and to a stage of manageability, but now, thanks to their literary talents, it looks as if the coffee table will be cluttered with several more books of required reading. Will I be able to find the time to take Winnie for a walk? She’ll be really upset if I don’t.

This week a jaunty forest raven dropped down off a branch to pick up a piece of stale bread. As I watched his “on guard” antics of always checking out where danger might be lurking, my own gaze moved past the bird and on down the path that leads to the Peace Fire. Seeing its smoke drifting lazily in the air, and, with the raven and bread in the periphery of my vision, I was reminded of an encounter with a similar sort of bird, a black currawong (the main difference between the two being their eyes, with the raven’s white whilst the currawong’s are a disturbingly piercing bright yellow). The encounter took place some five years ago and was a key factor (along with constant pestering by my webmaster, Allan Moult) in cracking my resistance to setting up this blog, Life at the Edge.

The time I speak of was a few months after the establishment of the Peace Fire (April, 2002) and a few weeks into my three year daily surf, but not yet into the weekly writing of Life at the Edge which started in January, 2003 Now, the blog is an established practice, but five years ago, although managing somehow to self publish Earth Links, a small monograph of sculpture and Roaring Beach Stories, I only dabbled in the occasional bit of writing. However, with the advent of the Peace Fire and The Swim, I was tinkering with the thought of doing another small, little book publication tentatively titled, Fire and Water. Being the slothful character I am, though, the act of writing remained just that—a thought.

It was around four in the afternoon and I was in my outdoor studio, not only bent over a piece of wood with chisels flailing, but also doing a bit of ruminating about Fire and Water, rolling ideas around and hoping something would hatch. Did I have the talent? Was there a need for more environmental writing?  Should I commit time to doing this little book when I could be carving? Is the book’s title too cheesy, too new-age?  etc., etc...... In other words, procrastinating.

Suddenly, like a meteorite falling out of the sky, a currawong lands on a saw horse just near to where I was working. Besides startling the day dreaming out of me with his totally crazy, unannounced flapping entrance, in his beak was a large rock whelk sea shell that I recognised as having come off my house deck. Once I regained my composure, I said: “You cheeky bird stealing from my collection of shells”. Then, with an exaggerated motion, the currawong spits the shell out onto the ground next to my feet, cocks his head and gives me that sideways look. “Do you expect to exchange this for a piece of bread?” I ask. After a few more cocks of the head with those yellow eyes peering inquisitively at me, the bird jumps off the saw horse, picks up the shell and flies off with it into the trees and out of view.

“Interesting”, I said to myself, then went on quietly carving while pondering the possible significance of the shell. Just a coincidence? Or had this feathered augur come with a plan?

Two hours later, I put on my wet suit, went for a surf and stayed until the sun disappeared behind some very black clouds coming in out of the west. Reaching home, instead of going immediately into the shower, I thought it best to stoke up the Peace Fire before the rain hit. So, I dropped off the boogie board and flippers in the yard and walked up the path to the fire. Half way there and what do I find right in the middle of the path?  You guessed it… that very same rock whelk sea shell. “Yes....” I excitedly screamed, “Fire and Water!” The symbolism was too apparent to ignore.

Well, for an hour anyway, because although impressed at the time with the currawong’s visit, a few days later the initial euphoric impact had lessened to just a “lovely” story, had been pushed to the back of my mind and I refused it entry into motivating me to do anything like actually writing.

Back then, my everyday morning breakfast routine would be to go sit with my toast and triple expresso coffee in a corner of the house next to a pair of French doors that swung open to an outdoor deck that, with windows that went from ceiling height to floor, offered an expansive view to the outside. I had finished breakfast and was slowly, very slowly, doing my best to move from the comfort of the cushioned chair to the hard board I sit on in the studio. Yet, despite the high amount of caffeine buzzing through me, my preference was to sit idly and read what others had written about nature and the elements.

When I came to the Mary Oliver poem, “Raven with Crows”, my attention perked up with her description of the crow as “a corn-meddler” as it brought my attention back to what I had witnessed a few days earlier and made me think of the currawong visitor as “a shell meddler” doing its best to mess with my mind. More importantly, it pricked my conscience sufficiently to want to become more constructive in creating the second “little book”. 

What should happen next? The currawong is on the deck tapping the bottom of the French door window no more than two feet away from my feet. I look through the window amazed at its reappearance. Never before had a bird been on the deck let alone a big black one tapping on a window as though asking permission to come into the house. All I could manage to do was just look at it. Finally, I said: “Okay, I hear you. You’re trying to tell me to get off my butt and get writing. Done deal.” The bird stopped pecking, gave me the yellow eye, proceeded to peck a few more times and then flew off.

That was five years ago. The currawong never returned, either to the studio or to the house. It’s black winged messenger’s presence seems only to have been needed to spur on the creation of Life at the Edge. With 8,000 people a week now reading about the comings and goings at Windgrove, a return flight was never necessary.

We all owe a bit of thanks to this bird.

The above “33 hearts mandala” was one of three mandalas gifted to me yesterday by Sally; a day that marked 22,280 days in procession that I have walked this earth—just over two thirds of the way to where I hope to end up having had a life of 33,000 days.

I like the number three.  Open on one side, yet protected on the other, there is a lovely give and take in its asymmetrical symmetry. Linear, yet bulbous, it is the most sensual of all the numbers. 

33 is the atomic number of arsenic, as well as, the ripe old age to which Alexander the Great and Jesus lived. It is also the number of the most professional baseball innings played. 

Being fascinated with this likeable number gave me the commitment to complete the 3 year, 3 month, 3 week, 3 day daily surf that I finished last year.

The two other mandalas from Sally were an oil painting on canvas and an acrylic painting on stone.  In the birthday card accompanying them, she wrote:

In honour of the ups and downs of love…

The Rocky Love Mandala represents the “downs” of love; love on the mundane earthly level. It is the stable force for when the road gets rocky. It signifies that aspect of love that stands through thick and thin. It is solid and grounded and strong.