Life on the Edge

Ten in the morning and already the forty red toes of the band, Four Leaf Clovis, have been stamping a beat for an hour's worth of ol'timey music. What a treat for myself and Windgrove to have the banjo, violin and guitars of Sherri, Sally and the two Kates singing up the land, the house and all our moods. And all the way from Alaska! About as far north as one can get from here.

Last night I went to bed while these gals were still playing. Such a pleasant feeling to drift off to sleep with music drifting into my consciousness and then quickly into my unconscious, dream state. Whoever thinks that living at Windgrove means having a lonely, reclusive life doesn't know the half of it. My fingers are tapping to the music even as I type this story into the computer. The coffee is perking on the stove. And we're all feeling real good. The joy is palpable. Sorry about the shortness of today's web blog, but the women and music are beckoning.

...."The surgeon had only bad news for the large group of friends who were keeping vigil at the hospital (the surgery took 3 or 4 hours). He said these tumors don't respond to treatment. It sounds hopeless...." Arriving yesterday morning, the above email concerning a friend's brain tumor was not encouraging. Later, on my way over to the Peace Fire to offer prayers, I passed a glance at the emerging spiral from the Womb of the Earth. Supposedly symbolising hope, it didn't seem any too hopeful. A damp, light mist hung in the air and even though the frogs croaked noisily in appreciation of the wet, the thought of a good person dying young coloured me grey. Looking at the seemingly "distant" spiral across the ashen waters of the pond, I wasn't able to draw any comfort with prayers of: "may Paula's tumors dissolve into nothingness" or "may Paula have many more years of happiness". Notwithstanding my belief in the healing power of thought, these prayers seemed inadequate and hollow, somehow pushing falsely against the reality of the cycles of birth, life, death, birth, life, death that I see swarming around me daily at Windgrove. It seemed more appropriate to pray that Paula, while she lay recovering in the hospital, be fully present with each passing breath and that she cherish each second of her earthly consciousness and was not consumed with what tomorrow might bring or not bring. It also seemed more kindly that her friends not pray so much for her future, but that they just love her fully in the moment. Later again while talking with a friend, Elizabeth, about "hope", she presented me with her concept of "presencing hope"; about how, when her daughter was born with a supposedly terminal condition, she learned to live each minute second by second. Here, she held her daughter in the love of that particular moment and did not allow the future, whatever it might be, to push into the day with its distant hopes or fears. Out of this simple, yet difficult task of just "being present", an envelope of hope did emerge to surround each moment. Out of this focused presence, came a hopeful halo that hung delicately in the air with just enough glow to allow those in the darkened room to see the smiling, cheerful face of the baby who shouldn't have been alive. A smile so precious in that instant that its presence was enough to distil any sense of hopelessness for the future into a tiny, yet grounded "presence of hope" that floated ever so tenderly out into the world beyond. By staying present with the goodness of each moment, hope was born within Elizabeth. Although fragile as a spider's web, this presencing hope would continually whisper that at the end of that minute or that hour or that day Hannah would still be with them. And, seven years later, she is. ******************** Smile, Paula. We're all smiling with you.

Yesterday evening just at dusk (a little later in the day than usual because I had been carving in the studio without paying attention to the time) I went into a fairly choppy, roller coaster surf at Roaring Beach. In the dimmed twilight with the setting sun hidden behind darkening clouds, the colors of water, land and sky were a steely grey. The air temperature was cold with a stiff breeze blowing across the water. It wasn't, by any stretch of the imagination, a cheerful setting. Yet, being in the water had its own comfort. Different, I thought, than what was being experienced by the lone figure walking at the far end of the beach and cutting a dark silhouette against the dunes. Catching a breaking wave and riding it in, half my body just keeping ahead of the frothy white, out of the corner of my eye and less than two body lengths away I caught sight of a blue object riding the wave in with me. Yes, there was a micro second when I pissed in my wet suit, but fairly quickly the shocking surreal impact of the initial encounter turned into a laughing at the total incongruity of it all when I realised that what I was looking at was a balloon; a bright, blue balloon. Unlike most balls or other floating objects,the balloon's speed and movement in the water was being hampered by the dragging action of the attached long string, making it bob and duck in an animate fashion much like a seal's head. We both got to the beach about the same time, but before I could get to the balloon the wind was moving it up the beach faster than I could run while wearing flippers. But flip along I did. From the far end of the beach, did the man on the log, hunched over in contemplation, gaze upon my end of the beach and, seeing a black wet-suited seal like adult figure wearing blue flippers chasing a blue balloon, have much cause for concern? When he eventually left for the car park and drove back to his tourist accommodation, did he question what he had witnessed at the lonely Roaring Beach? If he had come depressed, did he leave smiling? I did.

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 is broken open repeatedly or when one's heart is cracked, buffed and polished by life's winds (whether through intense joy or sorrow) we can then age into maturity fully compassionate and able to demonstrate, as James HIllman would attest, "the force of character". To seek to protect oneself from pain and to live in the emotional gated community of perpetual comfort zones might seem to be an easy escape through life, but like the personality of the 70 year old who has had one facelift too many, one sleeping pill too many and one shopping trip too many, the wrinkled, compassionate elder that should have emerged to guide the younger generations into a fuller wisdom has disappeared into a pitiful joke. This morning as I walked past the Split Rock, the spiral symbol of perpetual hope and rebirth was reflected on the side of one of the two halves. In this dawn light, the penny dropped for me as I further realized that for any of us to perceive or grasp the future, it is imperative that we allow the winds of life to polish our hearts. In this way, the image of our future will be more clear and easier to foresee. I also liked that the reflected spiral image pointed in the direction of the Ancestral Midden, an area dedicated to honoring the past. It seemed to suggest that our ability to embrace the concept of living in the Long Now (of holding the past, present and future simultaneously) would require being an active participant in the shaping agents of life. By the time I returned for breakfast I had exhausted myself with too many thoughts.

What is it about stones? Charles Simic tries an answer with this poem: "Go inside a stone That would be my way Let somebody else become a dove Or gnash with a tiger's tooth. I am happy to be a stone. From the outside the stone is a riddle: No one knows how to answer it Yet within, it must be cool and quiet Even though a cow steps on it full weight, Even though a child throws it in a river; The stone sinks, slow, unperturbed To the river bottom Where the fishes come to knock on it And listen. I have seen sparks fly out When two stones are rubbed, So perhaps it is not dark inside after all; Perhaps there is a moon shining From somewhere, as though behind a hill -- Just enough light to make out The strange writings, the star-charts On the inner walls." The stone I am holding in my hand is definitely a beach stone; all shapely rounded by who knows how many hundreds of years of wave action. But it was far from the beach when I came upon it. On Tuesday morning, in light mist, while walking around an area of land just off the Peace Path, an area of land I have never walked on before, there it lay half buried, glinting and shining like some polished jewel; like some dark moon shining. The only way it could have gotten there was for an aboriginal man or woman to have carried it there; possibly even a child. The riddle I ask myself is: "When was the last time this stone was picked up and held?" I close my eyes and allow myself to see a black hand cupping this stone. When it was put down, could the holder foresee the tragedy about to fall?

Exactly a year ago today, on October 6, I began the simple ritual of going into the surf daily. When I first wrote about this to my dear friend, Debra Frasier, she sent back an email all full of worry. I replied, in part, with the following: "I am standing on the beach looking out across Storm Bay and into 2000 miles of open ocean. I am thinking of what you wrote in your email; about dangers and needless risks and the need to exercise good judgement. I question myself on why I am down here, on this Sunday, in this weather, standing like a clown with my blue flippers and tiny green, blue and white boogie board with its four foot black cord strapped tightly onto my wrist. It all looks so ridiculous. But only in the same way that a devout atheist might look upon a Muslim kneeling down to pray on a crowded city street in the middle of the day and view this as ridiculous. I am here to pray. It is a very physical manner of praying and it is guiding me into a deeper relationship with life. I am here on this Sunday to receive the sacrament from the most holy of waters. The breakers coming in are not fearsome; they are a chorus of white angles rolling in the aisles singing their praises of this world. Before joining that great hallelujah chorus in the pews out back, I pray a simple prayer asking that we humans learn to revere, once again, this wonderful and incredible planet we all call home. I walk into the baptism willingly and with a hugh love welling in my heart. I take a moment to acknowledge my humble gratitude to this great body of sacred water by dipping my face into her wetness fully. I come up kissing. I come up praising. So don't you worry about me, Debra. I intend to be around for the complete unfolding."

This morning, both in honour of the completion of this first year of surfing and of my long standing friendship with Debra, I planted out a friendship circle of trees. Look closely at the photo above and you will see a tiny whitish circle with a tinier red wheelbarrow next to it. The deliberately chosen site is out in the open, exposed, with infertile soil, prone to salt spray, intense winds, drying summer heat, cracking earth and rapacious rabbits, wallabies and even currawongs hungry for anything. I figure that since our friendship has seen tougher times and survived, these trees will grow just fine. Around the circumference there are 27 tree placements; one for every year we have known each other (since 1976). Inside each of these 27 protective bags, two she-oaks have been planted side by side within the single dug hole. (How's this for a symbol of a close friendship?). All up, this makes for 54 trees or about the half way point between our respective ages of 57 and 50 (sorry for the public outing Debra).

As the seedlings are only about six inches tall at the moment, it will take fifteen or more years for each set of twins to grow large enough to embrace and interlink their branches with those next to them. Whether I'll get the chance to sit inside this tight circle of woven friendships, we'll just have to wait and see. In the meantime, I'll keep watering. In the "after"time, I'll be around watching and helping out where I can. Forever flying in with friends to check out the sunset.