Life on the Edge

William Stafford came to mind today as I was having some difficulty feeling up to the task of resolving a design problem concerned with plant stands for flowers and herbs in the new conservatory off the sun facing side of the house. Years ago in North Carolina while fielding questions from the audience after a poetry reading of his work, someone asked him how was it that he was able to write poem after poem everyday. Stafford's response was that, like everyone, he woke up some mornings and knew that his genius had stayed asleep. On these days, he said, he continued writing poems, but lowered his expectations. I simply put down my tools. And allowed the sweet fragrance of this week's first lemon blossoms to ever bloom at Windgrove carry me into contentment. I then thought of Stafford's poem, "Yes". "It could happen any time, tornado, earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen. Or sunshine, love, salvation. It could, you know. That's why we wake and look out -- no guarantees in this life. But some bonuses, like morning, like right now, like noon, like evening." Like this lemon blossom.

I've been in hiding. Solitary walks on frosty mornings have been the order of the day. Driving back late at night from the Dawn to Dusk Vigil at Parliament House a week ago, I could sense that my whole self was moving into shutdown mode. The previous month of totally throwing myself into the public arena, making myself available to the media, articulating the motivation and reasons for the vigil and holding the vision of its success daily, ended up exhausting me despite the best of physical and spiritual preparations. The vigil itself, no matter what its outcome, was going to take its toll. (Its success was in things unseen, its lack of success was in things thought to be seen.) The aftermath was that I was going to need some very private personal healing. I crawled into the cave of my home and refused to enter into any semblance of public engagement.

For five straight days, outside of tending to the Peace Fire and having my daily surf, I cherished the privacy of staying indoors and carving a little piece of myrtle wood to hold some sea shells, a seed and a sea horse. No music. No radio. No TV. Just hour after hour of contemplative rest. Slowly, with each tiny shaving of wood, I recharged the body, soothed the soul and nurtured the self. There was little desire to phone anyone, read the newspapers or go on line and deal with e-mails. There was no desire, whatsoever, to communicate with the general public.

Today, however, around fifteen university students of various departments came to Windgrove as part of an interdisciplinary course on the environment and the arts. I crawled out from underneath my self imposed shell and was refreshed by their freshness and collective desire to contribute, each in their own way, to the betterment of the world. We walked, we talked (well, mostly I did). We enjoyed the beauty that was in the day and the beauty (and necessity) of each other's company and support. Such open hearts. Such youthful exuberance to do right.

As they drove off I felt a new commitment to engage the public once again and, during the cycle of my life, do what I could to bring a more peaceful world into being. My only regret in the day came later as I wiped something off my cheek. I realised too late that I should have shaved.

Part of the lyrics to a song by Ben Harper are: "With these hands I can change the world". This invocation is open to all of us. As individuals, we have much more capability than we allow ourselves to have. Only our fears keep us powerless. Last Friday, after meditating at the Peace Fire, a vision came to me to ask the Premier of Tasmania to bring all 25 parliamentarians outside on the day of the Parliament House Vigil (August 19) and make a circle of joined hands. It would be seen by the public as a simple, yet powerful symbolic gesture that this government of Labor, Liberal and Green politicians are committed to working together with dignity to resolve Tasmania's forestry issue. So..... I sent off an email to all our state parliamentarians requesting this act. Well, within my circle of friends all fear broke out. There was even a call from Sydney wondering if I had gone crazy. The media would make me out to be a complete fool, all my integrity would be put into question and the success of the Vigil itself would be placed in jeopardy. All this because of a circle of politicians holding hands? My response? Rumi writes: "Start a hugh, foolish, project, like Noah. It makes absolutely no difference what people think of you." If we don't have vision after vision in how to create a better world -- a world different than the present reality -- than we might as well go back to sleep. Our unfaithfulness to love is destructive. Visions are fragile. They exist when one believes in their existence and disappear when there is fear. When Martin Luther King had his dream was he worried how the media or politicians of the day might ridicule him? Of the two, which is more preposterous: Black people being allowed to sit at the front of the bus, or twenty five elected parliamentarians holding hands?

One more light touch up with 600 grit sandpaper and a final coat of oil and the bench sculpture, "Christ and His Followers on the Sea of Galilee", will be finished. Whew. Six months of carving over a ten month period plus two more months of oiling. Symbolically, Christ is the "heart" stone. Placed in the center it radiates out compassion, tolerance and love. Whether we are Christians or not, doesn't matter. What does is that Christ's teachings of the heart need to be brought back into practice in this age of fear driven politics.

The other 18 stones represent the "followers", who are all of us. "Ye without sin cast the first stone" reminds us that we all have a shadow side and should therefore not rush into judgement. Instead, let us use our imperfect selves to build a world based on heart politics; where, instead of throwing stones at each other, we use these stones (ourselves) to build cathedrals of peace. Technically, this has been the most difficult sculpture I have ever attempted because of the complex interactions between so many stones. To achieve a simple Zen like feel to the sculpture, as though the stones just happened to fall naturally into place, requires, not only an eye for a constant visual check on the carving, but fingers with "eyes" in order to feel the emerging form. A steady awareness of what is unfolding and a quiet patience to allow it to unfold is what is needed throughout the whole process. The "care of duty" entrusted to me with this 2000 year old piece of huon pine does not allow for even one inattentive moment during the six months of carving. The whole exercise is basically that of developing and maintaining a reverential relationship between the wood and stones and myself.

Each encapsulated stone emerged out of the wood as slow as a budding lemon blossom. Pushing their way into being, each nudged against their neighbour in a way that allowed the unique individualness of each stone to remain within the balanced integrity of the whole. If this is beginning to sound too much like "art speak", forgive me. I just want to try and articulate a little of what went into the making of this piece. Art, to me, has a vital role to play in the healing of ourselves and the world. Through art we can gain a sense of our place in the world and a sense of our purpose. This purpose is aligned with service. We are all in the same boat, this earth. It behoves us to love it, to love ourselves and to love each other.

What are all these stamped envelopes? For the last two days I have been preparing a formal letter that is being sent out to all 57 of Tasmania's elected state and federal parliamentarians; a letter that explains the reasons behind the Dawn to Dusk Parliament House Vigil on August 19. Will the letter get read? Hopefully, because the vigil is a plea from many people who want their politicians, when they deal with the forestry issue, to "bring a sense of reverence and dignity to the livelihoods of all Tasmanians and to the lives of all of Tasmania's flora and fauna". "The focus of the vigil is certainly the forests, but it is also about people and how government policy affects both people and the forests. It is a vigil seeking change, not only as regards the government’s treatment of the forests, but how our Federal and State governments treat their citizens." "The intent of the vigil is to push past the rhetoric and get all elected parliamentarians to consider the forestry debate in terms of reconciliation instead of compromise. Compromise tends to seek resolution through dividing up of whatever is being "fought" over. True reconciliation is about making something sacred again. As soon as governments treat all people and nature with reverence, then the potential for truly sustainable policies on logging and/or conservation become possible." ••••••••••••••••••• So why is Tim, the visiting cellist, smiling? The answer lies in the background to his right. With the last stamp being put on letter # 57, we are ready to head down to the "Beach" for my daily surf and Tim's stroll. Well, not quite ready. Tim still has to practice his cello for an hour.

The hill behind the house climbs to 500 feet before levelling off as a ridge that extends for a couple of miles in an easterly direction parallel to the coast. This evening I took Tim, my cellist friend, up to the top to catch some of the beauty that only height can bring. Looking south straight into the Southern Ocean there was only one land mass between us and the Antarctic. This was the wind shaped speck of land called Wedge Island floating two and a half miles off shore. Blue black clouds of a distant storm front were the back drop, but right on cue the setting sun peaked through to cast a lone beam of light upon the island turning its westward side into a glowing beacon of..... Of what? Hope, maybe? Like a lighthouse for storm wracked sailors? This evening, Wedge was such a symbol. After a hectic day at the computer and on the phone working to organise the Parliament House vigil and feeling overwhelmed at times with the immensity of the project, not to mention its importance to the trees, it was soothing to my soul to see such an exquisite and reassuring guiding light. "Yes", was it's simple message. "Yes." Back at the house, I reflected on those friends of mine who, in their far off lives, are a Wedge Island to me. Who give me encouragement, permission, guidance, to be who I am simply by their being just who they are. For all of us, even though we might literally be cut off from the mainland of city life, or emotionally feel adrift in the dark vastness of everyday life, we each can still beam light, love and compassion across the divide. Even in our aloneness, we can each sing out our own unique island voice and, in so doing, reach unknown shores. Whether we know it or not, someone on some distant hill top just might gather in our distant "smoke signal" of love and find themselves refreshed.

Until today, the only time I had ever heard any of Bach's Cello Suites being played was when Maurice Gendron's CD was in the stereo.

Late this afternoon, however, "life at the edge" took on a whole new meaning as Windgrove's latest refugee-in-residence, Tim Anderson, treated me to a solo recital of the Prelude for Suite No. 1. I think he was more blissed out than I, but nonetheless, using such a word as rapturous to describe how I felt would be an understatement.

Look carefully at the photo and there is a small fishing boat approaching. What reeled them in was a bow rubbing across strings on a wooden box. Blending with the sea air, the sea cliffs and the sea itself, a siren's call of rhythmic simplicity and warm seductive flow lured us all into believing that "This is as good as it gets".

Having flown in from America's east coast a week ago (Baltimore, Maryland) where he free-lances as a cellist in several orchestras as well as performing with the Live Wire String Quartet, I'm not sure Tim quite expected winter in Tasmania to be as stunningly beautiful as this.

If I have a secret hope, it is that a seventh cello suite might be composed in the next two weeks on these cliff tops and performed in Hobart at the Parliament House Vigil on August 19. If Tim can get fishermen to drop their bait, just think what might happen to our politicians determination to keep logging our old growth forests.