Life on the Edge

From across the kitchen I can look through the guest bedroom, out the window, down the lane and see the smoke of the Peace Fire curl upwards into the air.

Whenever I do so it comforts me. Wisps of smoke, in this instance, signal that there is a caring in this world. A caring associated with being human and a caring associated with being in the more-than-human world.

This caring prevails, has prevailed and will continue to prevail despite Mugabe’s attempts to tear out the shanty town food gardens of Zimbabwe’s poor, despite the Japanese government’s attempts to slaughter more whales, despite the Australian government’s incarceration of refugees, despite the Tasmanian government’s callousness to ancient forests and, even, despite my own inner demons working within me to create unrest and sleepless nights.

Daily, for over three years I have walked a mini pilgrimage to the Peace Fire and, in the circular walk around it, have gone to each cardinal compass point, faced outward from the fire and said a prayer for peace out over the lichen encrusted rock to the world beyond.

East, North, West, then South. In doing so, over a thousand times my gaze has fallen onto each rock in the morning or evening light. Out of this “attention” has come a knowing and a loving and a caring for each individual rock, as well as for the fire and smoke.

In essence, these stones have become sacred and the smoke is alive. Here, spirit is fused with matter. In return for my giving attention to them, they, now, attend to me. This reciprocity of caring I am grateful for. It sustains me as I sustain them.

Every so often, my solo pilgrimage to the Peace Fire is enhanced by the company of others. Last Sunday, for instance, 16 kids and 3 adults from the Sophia Mundi Steiner school in Melbourne joined me around the fire and around the whole of the Peace Walk at Windgrove. The youngsters were, for being just 13 and 14 years old, wonderfully composed, knowledgeable, aware and just plain nice in their exhibited exuberance for life.

They, along with the wisps of smoke in the morning, give me confidence for the future.

Whew!

I have just finished the second of the "Still Lives".  All day today I have been trying to photograph this new piece in a way that reveals something of its sensual, tactile quality because this is primarily an object for touching, not just looking at as in a museum. However, after one hundred or so deleted images, I need to give up trying to capture what just might not be capturable.

It is said that every picture tells a story; that a painting is worth a thousand words. In this instance, though, the picture doesn't tell the whole story. Therefore, if any readers are in the vicinity of Tasmania, please feel free to drop by for a hands on experience.

Not that there isn't something here of value. The photo detail below gives a hint, at least, to some of the complexity of the carving.

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Reflections #One

The reflected image of the Peace Spiral on the pond this morning as it seemingly caressed the Split Rock made me think of:

...those tiny events in our lives that have no firm basis, no longevity, yet are capable of filling our whole day with a solid sense of beauty or wonder. 

The multi faceted dancing spiral in the water disappeared within minutes, but in the moment I caught its form, it shot me up with enough joy to last through the morning and into the afternoon. I carried this image with me longer than I would have carried an image of the “real” spiral. Reflections of this sort have an element of magic within them that casts their own spell.

Reflections #Two

Here is a photo of the current Windgrove Resident, Louise Morrison. It’s somewhat out of focus image conveys a hint of the reflective quality she is in as she uses her time here to collate into a visual diary her year in countryside Japan as an apprentice potter.  She rereads an entry of four years ago and is transported back to the ever changing mountains, the balanced presentation of the exquisitely prepared food and the temple like quality of her existence among humble Buddhist potters living close to the land.

Is this a “true” reflection of what actually happened?

Does it matter?  Isn’t it enough that Louise is transported into a realm that is as real as she wants to make it?

For me, the hard reality is that, like all visitors, like the spiral reflection, like the flying rainbow of a hummingbird zipping into my life for a brief second before zipping off to who knows where, Louise will be soon gone.

Sort of. 

At the end of this month, June, I will have reached the 1000th Day in surfing daily at Roaring Beach.

Or, so I had hoped.

Last Saturday, as I huddled next to a disintegrating sand dune while gale forced winds tried to rip the boogie board from the clinch of my arms and breaking offshore 28 ft/8 meter swells were altering the known landscape, I made the decision not to enter into the water.

This was a tough call for me and it didn’t come easy. I spent an hour weighing up all the pros and cons of any decision, from the rational standpoint, to the emotional, to my feeling of not wanting to break any aspect of this, more-than-three-year, ritual.

In the end, it was not that “sanity” prevailed. Rather, a calm, yet knowing inner voice calmly repeating “Respect and Humility are needed today” became clear enough for me to accept.

Simply put, the ocean was revealing an aspect of itself that did not allow for a land based human to enter into without possible serious injury. Not even for a committed daily ritual whose intended purpose was to experience directly whatever the ocean had in store for me for the day. To enter on this day would have been, not so much foolhardy, as disrespectful to the awesomeness of what was being shown.

And what was being exhibited was absolutely outrageous. Staying in the grandstand and not needing to enter into the main arena was going to be okay.

So, without donning the flippers and heading out into the water as I have done for over two and a half years, and even though part of me wanted to taste the thrill of being thrashed about on those roaring waves, I simply knelt at the top edge of the debris laden beach and when the next foaming wave came rushing up to hiss at me, I cupped its waters and splashed them on my face. This was my contact, my baptism with the ocean on this day.

For a few brief seconds, with eyes closed and as the water dripped off my face and the rocks hummed beneath the retreating wash of wave, I felt as though I were in the surf along with the dolphins riding those wondrous wet walls of power.