Life on the Edge

Still Another Day #VI

Pardon me, if when I want
to tell the story of my life
it’s the land I talk about.
This is the land.
It grows in your blood
and you grow.
If it dies in your blood
you die out.

Pablo Neruda

A bit worn at the edges and nearly camouflaged, the simple message is still there after two years. Tree took that human written word—once sharply white, crisp, handmade, newly formed—and transformed it into itself: into bark; into bleeding stains of growth and aged lichen-grey peels.

Four letters attached to tree make redundant what tree already knew. Still knows. It was always there, this love within the tree. Only us humans needed to have it spelt out. When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn?

Yesterday.....an email from a friend who had just returned from Scotland:
meanwhile jet lag is keeping me awake - as are the log trucks now every fifteen minutes or so down the southern outlet - on this still night they are like a great roaring decelerating down the hill into town then rumbling down Macquarie Street - what a madness it all is - out there in Europe green is huge - what idiots run our govt down here.

Yesterday.....the editorial in the newspaper asked the question: Should more Tasmanian forests be protected from logging?  I replied:  The real tragedy is that the question is even asked. To continue putting to the axe aged forests thousands of years old, creates a wound in Tasmania’s psyche as great as the stain of its brutal convict days.

We keep denying the life sustaining power of nature; of its immense capacity to love us back into wholeness. Pardon me, but when the last of the ancient trees are cut down, what then?

The above photo of Wedge island, which is just off the southern end of Windgrove, conveys nature as a multiple of dualisms: beautiful and sinister, foreboding and enticing, stormy and calm. There is no one description of nature that fits. The flip side of today’s description will be tomorrow’s reality. Similar, I suppose (if memory serves me correct), to what Tom Robbins wrote about in Even Cowgirls Get the Blues when he said: Everything is beautiful; nothing is sacred. Everything is sacred; nothing is beautiful.

The only issue subject to debate with any of the several qualities of nature is their relative weighting or frequency of occurrence. 

I say this because of a comment by an art critic who, in his review last year of an “ephemeral” art exhibition of site specific sculpture, wrote: Anyone who has watched a David Attenborough documentary will know that peace, tranquility and spiritual renewal are entirely foreign to the natural world. Tennyson’s nature red in tooth and claw is much closer to reality.

Peace, tranquility and spiritual renewal—entirely foreign to the natural world? Give me a break.

My immediate response is to say that the reviewer has been watching too much TV and that he should leave the city and try living surrounded by nature for a period of time. If so, he would come to know that the operative word for nature is “benign”; that, if action and drama are to be filmed, hours of waiting are the norm. Certainly, there is a violent aspect surrounding territorial squabbles and the acquisition of food, but after 15 years of watching the eagles float endlessly for hours at a time, I have only seen an eagle red in tooth and claw twice. 

When I encounter a snake along a Windgrove path, I always manage to levitate higher than I can when meditating, but these encounters are a sum total of 15 seconds per year. Compare this with the countless hours of walking I do on these paths and my point is made: if drama is what one is after, then be prepared to wait. Peace and tranquility are the rule rather than the exception.

Capturing Wedge Island in the right light has taken years.

The storms that bend and shape the trees happen only infrequently.

It was the 5th anniversary of the Peace Fire this past weekend so it seemed important to honour this through all night meditations, cups of tea and quiet conversation while the moon inched slowly across the sky. There was even a tented swag set-up to crawl into when weariness overtook the body in the wee hours of the morning.

Beyond the seriousness of the occasion itself, the best part of “camping out “ was that it all happened in my backyard. It was just plain fun to be able to spend the night camping around a campfire so close to the house. Just like us kids did when we were young and a little fearful of ghosts and other things that moved in the dark.

Knowing a quick cookie run into the house is possible, a little courage (along with the crumbs) finds its way into many a brave seven year old’s sleeping bag.

Now, as I think about kids and backyard camping, I am reminded of a time thirty years ago where there wasn’t a backyard with a safe house within reach.

In the lightly forested area of Roan Mountain on the border of North Carolina and Tennessee and at the end of a mile long spur off the main Appalachian Trail, my buddy, Dan, and I, along with two others, set up camp after a day walk of easy hiking, kite flying and playing with the gods. At sunset, while taking in the beauty of a pollen enhanced red sky (hence, “smokey mountains"), we could faintly hear boisterous chatter coming from enthused boys setting up their own camp back down the trail from us. Most likely they were young scouts on a first camping adventure. Most likely, being off the main trail they were unaware of anyone else camping nearby.

Later, being a bit curious about who they might be, Dan and I set off towards their camp in the dark using only the light of the moon to guide us. Our intention was to just sneak a peek at their camp set-up and then walk back to ours.

Carefully darting from tree to shrub to tree so as not to reveal ourselves, we got, if not exactly on top of the tents, fairly close; enough to hear the many peppered conversations between the 20 or so boys.

Occasionally, one of the adult “leaders” would belt out: “Quiet down.” “Shut up.” “It’s time to go to sleep”.  Following these commands, there would be a few seconds of silence. Then, the first murmuring would begin and within the time it would take a marshmallow to burn, every tent would erupt in giggles and the rapid fire chatter of boy energy all accompanied with any number of flashlights wildly piercing the canvas of the tents not too unlike the search lights of antiaircraft gunners frantically looking for enemy planes.

Then, for whatever reason, possibly because of a boyish nature still resident in the two of us, Dan and I started to howl like wolves.

Big, ferocious wolves. Big enough to eat several boys at once.

Well, a star’s twinkle could be heard in the silence that instantly dropped down upon the tents.

Not one word. From them or us.

Little boy imaginations began to stir.

One minute passed, then two. A total silence with not a single flashlight piercing the dark.

Then came one very soft, yet audible cry from one very scared boy. Then, from a second tent came another cry. Then another. Before long the whole camp and every tent was flooded in teary, fearful crying. Between sobs were the words: “I want to go home.”

Dan and I didn’t know what to do. Reveal it was all a joke? But then the boys might become even more fearful knowing there were two crazy humans out there.

We slunk guiltily back to our tent promising to return to the scout camp in the morning to apologise. But when dawn arrived and we summoned up the courage to face the wrath of the little boys, when we got to the camp it was no longer there. At what hour did they pack up and leave? If it was in the night, there would have been no home to go to just 100 metres from the campsite. This was no one’s backyard.

To this day, I wonder whether or not I so ruined someone’s first camping experience that they never again have ventured outside the confines of their home on a summer’s evening to seek out the peaceful beauty that could be there for them on a mountain top somewhere along the Appalachian Trail.

Then again, maybe there is an ecologist or two with Ph.D.’s still searching the hidden caves of Roan Mountain looking for that elusive creature who is said to be half wolf, half man and who survives solely upon the blood of young boys.

The first tragedy to strike our tight knit community this past week was the passage by the upper house of the pulp mill fast track legislation that had been approved by the lower house the previous week. The bill is so bad that it does not allow any prosecution of proven criminal intent by Gunns (the pulp mill builder) to be permissible. There is no public input allowed into the assessment process and no scientist other than the appointed government consultant can make any recommendations or point out any flaws in the environmental material submitted by Gunns. The Australian Medical Association is aghast by the legislation and most legal scholars are astounded by its blatant denial of democratic process. Yet, it gets passed.

The second tragedy was on Saturday when a father had to bury his son; a mother her child.

Too young, too young, were the words most often heard floating across the muffled hush of 300 or so mourners come to give their last respects to Tom and to offer heartfelt, if ineffective, support to the grieving parents, Pete and Anna. 

Part of Pete’s eulogy spoke of his son wanting to live an “authentic life” and not be consumed with the accumulation of material things. Aside from a massive collection of books, Tom wanted to travel light and to devote himself to honest work. Work that would be for the betterment of all.

While sitting in the funeral home’s chapel, I noticed to the right of me was Christine Milne, the Green’s federal Senator. To the left was Duncan Kerr, federal Labor parliamentarian. The one has been outspoken in her condemnation of the scandalous ethics of the state Labor party; the other totally silent. Duncan Kerr, although a federal politician and the former attorney general of Australia, would know that what his state Labor party mates were doing was totally unethical, yet, to date, he has not defended the rule of good governance with even one spoken or written word. 

In the hospital, just before his death, Tom wrote something along the lines of:  “A good architect can look at the foundation of a building and imagine what the completed structure will be. I hope my family and friends can look at my life to date, my foundation so to speak, and see that I would have been a decent person who would have done good.”

Tom’s brief life fell as ashes on the one politician and as feathered kisses on the other.

Driving home, I will have to admit to feeling a surge of anger towards those politicians who would desecrate, not only the state’s environmental wonders, but the basis of democratic law. What sort of role models to our young are our politicians when they tear up the rule book on political transparency and sell their souls publicly and blatantly to deceit and political grovelling.

In the town of Sorrell, I passed the state Labor office and felt an urge to get a can of paint and spray, in red, SHAME across the names of the five politicians posted in the windows.

By Dunally, I wanted to take out full page advertisements in the newspaper denouncing the actions of our Labor and Liberal politicians.

By Eaglehawk Neck, I wanted to use the billboards across the city of Hobart to effectively keep the issue alive.

In the end, I did none of the above. The spray painting seemed too violent a reaction while the ads and billboard signage proved too costly.

But I have and will continue to do what I can through letter writing and engaging in dialogue with as many as will listen. In no small way this honours Tom’s memory by offering Pete and Anna and us older folk a path of committed hope for the future.  For you see, the natural cycle of passing on to a younger generation issues of responsibility was broken somewhat with Tom’s untimely death. The baton of social justice issues he had been preparing to carry has been passed back to us. It might be that us oldies have to carry the flag of protest a little longer. Breath in deeply and keep on truckin’.

Tom is now on the other side of the song, but if we talk up our walk while walking our talk, our collective voices will be sweet music to him.

And the meaning of the top photo?

Mike, a true “journeyman” carpenter from a German wood guild passed through Windgrove last week carrying nothing save for a walking stick and a small bundle of clothes. For a minimum of three years and one day, he told me he has to “do good and bring happiness to others through his woodworking skills”.

Tom travelled light. Mike travels light. May we all travel light.

The above photo of “giant” spiral snail slugs in the tomato patch was originally “set up” in order to post this year’s April Fool’s Day blog in a manner similar to the jokes of last year and 2004. The story line was to have been along the lines of: potent sea weed compost leads to invasion of tomato eating snail slugs never before seen in the southern hemisphere; probable cause being ballast water from ocean going wood chip freighters.

I say “was” because the recent news concerning the antics of our two major political parties (Labor and Liberal) has taken the humor and fun out of the moment and has made me more angry and pissed off than usual.

Late last week I went to a rally in front of Parliament House in a vain attempt to pressure the parliamentarians inside not to vote on the legislation before them—legislation to fast track the building of a pulp mill instead of having an independent environmental assessment—but to no avail. Only the Greens voted against it with all the Labor and Liberal politicians giving it their assent. 

The only bit of good news was that some of the state and national newspapers (who usually side with the government) were hard on the parliamentarians:

.....Something rotten in the Apple Isle

.....In many democracies it would be enough to trigger an independent commission of inquiry. 

And, although not directly related, the best quote came from the national online journal, Crikey:

...the shallow gene pool that populates state politics with drones, dolts, timeservers and incompetents...

Fairly harsh criticisms, for sure, but it hasn’t “undone” the passing of the legislation. Even this morning on the news, the two major parties continued to defend their actions.

So, no April Fool’s blog on April 1st. Sorry. The fools, I feel, are too much in power and it is depressing to contemplate how much damage they are doing in so many areas.

In fact, the fools are in the garden creating as much destruction as they can and munching away without too much impunity, it seems.

When I contemplate on the sound of the word “garden”, I hear within it the sound/word “guard”. This might not be the true etymology for garden, but it rings true to me. We must guard the garden. We must remain vigilant against the slugs and pests—the drones and dolts—that would infest our gardens.

Not always easy. Not always enjoyable. But necessary, none the less.

I just wish there was an environmentally friendly, non-toxic way of getting rid of Tasmania’s slimy, sleazy slugs.

Today marks another equinoctial day on the year’s calendar where night and day are equal throughout the world. Equal, perhaps, between the amount of hours given to either light or darkness, but not so much a blending of the two. Reminds me of the old, discriminatory, “Separate, but Equal” apartheid laws of America. 

Maybe we should abolish the separateness of light from dark and make the whole of the day a fusion of half light, half dark. What would it be like to walk through a noon landscape that looked more moon lit than sun lit? Colors red, blue and yellow would bleed off into soft greys. The grey hairs on my head would be indistinguishable from the dark hairs of my lover. (Hey, I’m beginning to like this, this dimming of contrasts to a soft, muted togetherness.)

Usually, the color grey connotes ageing and death or the slightly sinister. Ghosts, fog, a grey day, battleship grey, men in grey suits. Not exactly cheerful. But, when I sit down to keep company with grey weathered logs nestled among grey weathered stones, I am moved by their sleepy, slow dissolve into each other. This might be the grey of decay and death, but is there not beauty in this final release of differences and the coming together in balanced rest? My eyes tell me there is.

Maybe heaven is but one joyful mass of grey where beauty lies in the greys of the beholder.

After complaining at the local medical clinic this week that my right testicle was constantly sore, the doctor prescribed Voltaren, a strong anti-inflammatory. Well, the drug didn’t do much for my balls, but it sure did wonders for my knees. For the first time in years, I felt totally free and fleet of foot (like when I was a teenager). No joint pain at night, none while working, none hiking with a heavy pack (carrying stones) and none running. Fantastic. What a thrill.

Remember the 1990 movie, Awakenings, where a man (played by Robert De Niro) is brought out of a decades-long, trance like sleep through the use of the drug L-DOPA?  Loosely based on a true story by neurologist Oliver Sacks, De Niro’s character is exuberant with his new found freedom, but eventually realises that the drug that brought him out of his long term semi-coma is not long lasting enough to permanently keep him “awake” and that, slowly, once again, he will slide back into his isolated world. I will admit to crying when he asks one of the nurses to have a last dance with him. Can anyone even begin to imagine what anguish this man would have felt knowing that soon he would no longer be able to hold onto a woman and move freely, confidently across the dance floor?

Certainly not as dramatic as the movie, but my magic pills put me between a rock and a hard spot, as well. You see, the tiny writing on the package warned that I could take the pills for five days only because of the possible adverse affect on my liver and kidneys with prolonged usage. Aware that my testicular pain is tied in with a kidney that has passed kidney stones and that extra precaution has to be exercised when taking drugs, I knew that my knee’s new found freedom would be short lived.

Sadly, reluctantly, I popped one, last pill, did a little jog on the beach, danced a sweet dance on the lawn and then waited for the return of the ongoing daily ache of arthritic knees.

But...... not before I was able to experience once again what William Stafford wrote:

Most mornings I get away, slip out
the door before light, set forth on the dim, gray
road, letting my feet find a cadence
that softly carries me on. Nobody
is up--all alone my journey begins.

(from the poem, Run before Dawn)

Or..... what Marge Piercy writes: 

It is not the running I love, thump
thump with my leaden feet that only
infrequently are winged and prancing,
but the light that glints off the cattails
as the wind furrows them, the rum cherries
reddening leaf and fruit, the way the pines
blacken the sunlight on their bristles,
the hawk circling, stooping, floating
low over beige grasses,....

(from the poem, Morning athletes)

I’m now back to a slower, more careful walk through life’s wonders. Still, it was a blessing of sorts, those few days when I was transported to a time when the body had no wounds and knew no pain. 

I came across an article this week that talked about a proposal before the English parliament for a 4,000 km continuous corridor of clear and well managed public access along the entire length of England’s coast. Such a great idea. Sir Martin Doughty, Chair of Natural England said: “The principle is clear: the public should have consistent and secure access around their coastline.”

I couldn’t agree more. “Power to the feet”, I say.

Ever since reading Rebecca Solnit’s, Wanderlust: a history of walking, I have been fascinated with, and desirous of, creating paths for people to walk along. Surely, the two kilometre Peace Walk is a working statement of this fact.

However, as beautiful and inspiring as it might be, the Peace Walk is still on private land and the public has no legal access to it. This I don’t intend to change.

But, in total agreement with the English proposal above, I have been working with my local council to create a public footpath along Windgrove’s northern boundary (a distance of around half a kilometre) and all legal hurdles were recently completed after I “sold” a six foot strip of land to the council for $1. This now allows my neighbours and the general public legal access to the Roaring Beach Conservation Area.

As well, I am creating and maintaining a continuation of this path along the western boundary (adjacent with the RBCA) and connecting it to an existing path to the beach.

Some would argue that I am giving up control and privacy; that hooligans and trouble makers will descend like vultures onto the land; that the selling value of the land might even be lessened.

I would argue back that, as an owner of a coastal headland, I am morally obligated to provide this access. Growing up in America where wealthy land owners slowly closed off the public’s access to the coastal areas by building “gated communities”, I have seen how the average citizen can be locked out of experiencing the beauty of such areas.

In a way my motive is selfish. I want the earth’s natural treasures to be preserved. The more paths there are for people to walk or bike along the earth’s body, the more they will come to love her and, hence, protect her.

Instead of hooligans, I see kids with surf boards walking along the path, neighbours out for a stroll and gladdening hearts everywhere.

When I wake up in the morning, I want to wake up feeling kindness to all.