Life on the Edge

In a letter to the editor of Tasmania’s Mercury newspaper this week, I wrote: It is said that a great society is known, not only for what it creates, but for what it refuses to destroy.

In this letter I was making reference to the continual destruction in Tasmania of the precious old growth forests and diverse ecosystems that have remained relatively untouched for literally thousands of years. All for the sake of appeasing the appetite of a hugh woodchipping corporation, the biggest in the southern hemisphere.

Today, though, I would like to use this quote (source unknown) as the basis of a possible answer to the question: “How does one deal with loss?”

Specifically, how does the Green political party and its supporters pick themselves up from the loss incurred at last Saturday’s state election where, because of a well funded campaign against the Greens from the extreme religious right, the logging unions, vested business interests and both major political parties (Liberal and Labor), the Greens took a considerable hit on the chin. Inculcating fear in the populace seems to be the modus operandi of winning elections these days around the world and, Tasmania, it is now evident, is up there with the best of the spin merchants.

May I suggest that the greatness of the Greens is in their ethically, indomitable spirit and that the Greens should, therefore, steadfastly refuse to let the machinations of the dominate political culture, that attempts to “win” at all costs, subdue and destroy this spirit. There is no other way to go forward. Becoming more cynical and hard-nose is not the answer.

Maintain the faith. It is as simple and as difficult as that.

The photo at the top of this entry shows a field still fairly barren after 30 years. In 1976 the last of the sheep were taken off the land and the land has been struggling hard ever since to re-vegetate. 

My role, and the role I see the Greens playing in the world, is not hoping to see the world flourish in our lifetime, but to nurture and plant seeds and seedlings for a more diverse and healthier world to come into being. To second guess when this will be can lead to disappointment. 

Every year for the past 14 years I have been attempting to get trees and shrubs to grow along the cliff edge that faces south to Storm Bay and the Southern Ocean. It is one wild and difficult place, salt dry and barren and about as difficult to change as the mindset in the Tasmanian government. But I refuse to give up or admit that nothing will grow or that it is damaged beyond repair.

In the photo below, this area at the top of the cliff was planted out with 50 trees fourteen years ago and not one of those original seedlings has survived.

But what has survived is my determination to arrest the loss of soil through erosion and previous mismanagement. Now, seedlings planted two years ago are putting down roots.

Over the years, I have learned that it is not enough to just plant the seeds and walk away from them thinking they will survive on their own. Now, I build circular, doughnut shape structures to help protect the young plants from the wind and salt and marauding, hungry wallabies. Made mostly from tea-tree branches and about three feet or a meter in diameter, these enclosures are the latest attempt to stop erosion and to bring back a more sustainable landscape. In the last two weeks 20 truck loads of thinned tea-trees have created about half a kilometre of protective enclosure. And not just thrown down on the ground, I might add. But interwoven and “stitched” together to withstand the ferocity of what is thrown at them.

This takes one hell-of-a lot of work. (I’m sitting at the computer writing this article with a hot water bottle on my lower back.) And, yes, at times it doesn’t seem worth the trouble. Yet, I refuse to let any set backs knock me back. I change tactics, rethink things and try again. Maybe not in my lifetime, but eventually, without a shadow of a doubt, a dogged, “honest” persistent effort will win out.

And, I deliberately write “honest” because in the natural world, spin and unethical behavior amount to nothing. Water, earth, sun and a consistency of purpose in front of a daunting task is what is required; is what in the long run will provide the opportunity for the new to emerge. 

From an unknown poet:

Where the morning sees the shadows
Of the orange grove, there was nothing twenty years ago.
Where the dry wind sowed the desert
We brought water, planted seedlings, now the oranges grow.

What’s in a blank canvas?  Potential, maybe. Pure potential. Certainly, some form of beginning.

Or perhaps, having noticed the cob web attached to the easel, the white canvas is symbolic of an inability to start; fear, in other words.

I am not saying anything new if I make the comment that for anyone participating in the arts, staring in front of a blank sheet of paper or blank canvas or lump of clay can be the most daunting and difficult portion of the creative process. Once the first line is written or drawn, however, the rest tends to follow more easily. Writer’s block, painter’s block. It has happened to every artist and there are many books written how various artists have dealt with “The Beginning”.

But today, I want to talk about what beginnings are like, not for the artist, but for the simple, human being (like myself) who wakes up nearly every single morning with the upcoming day seemingly as dauntingly blank as a white canvas. I want to talk about what it is like, upon blinking open the eyes to the first light, to see in the pillow or ceiling a total mystery; tabla rasa, a clean slate, a complete unknown.

Several of my friends wake up quite early in the morning all full of get up and go and charge into the day. However, my life most every day begins as a blank canvas with hardly a scribble on it as a clue of how the day will/should be drawn out. I have always envied my friends with their ability to know what is required and then have the boundless energy to engage in the doing. When I was younger, this uncertainty of purpose would scare me a little; make me feel I wasn’t contributing something, somehow, to something. But over the years I have learned to trust that as the day unfolds, little bit by little bit the blank canvas of the morning will, by night fall, be richly detailed and vibrant. It just takes a little initiative to engage with the awake world.

Daily I have to deal with cobwebs. And plenty of them at times. The discipline of getting out of bed and stumbling into the day with a short walk to the Peace Fire via the Peace Garden is like a big broom sweeping through my personal easel, thereby, allowing vision after vision to enter. While walking, the sounds within the air give one hint of possibility. A flash of feather against a backdrop of green moves another cog. Other ideas present themselves through clouds or distant waves or the dew on a bush. A scribble here, a dash there, a connecting line through the horizon and, lo and behold, I’m heading back to the house with a plan for the day. But not before toast and coffee.

Poet William Stafford describes this beautifully in the following poem.

Every morning all over again

Only the world guides me.
Weather pushes, or when it entices
I follow. Some kind of magnetism
turns me when I am walking
in the woods with no intentions.

There are leadings without any
reason, but they attract;
if I find there is nothing to gain
from them, I still follow—their power
is the power of the surrounding world.

But things that promise, or those
that will serve my purposes—they
interfere with the pure wind
from nowhere that sustains a kite,
or a gull, or a free spirit.

So, afloat again every morning,
I find the current: all the best
rivers have secret channels that
you have to find by whispering
like this, and then hear them and follow.

Maintain: to continue, persevere in; to carry on, keep up; to keep in being; to sustain by nourishment.

Maintenance: the action of maintaining.

The interesting thing, for me, is that the etymology of “maintain” is rooted in the Latin “hand” (manus) plus “to hold” (tenere). Again and again the physical world is the basis for our present day language. Seemingly forgotten in the abstraction of modern living, it is there none-the-less.

Yesterday, in order to keep the Peace Spiral in good nick, I spent the day living up to the fullness of this word “maintenance”. Once, when I was at the top of the ladder reaching a bit too far with the oiling brush and the wind came up and blew my hat off, a touch of vertigo set in and I dropped the brush and held onto the ladder with both hands. I little scary, yes, maintaining myself while maintaining the Peace Spiral.  Lots of hands on action and lots of holding on.

There is, also, in this discussion of the word “maintenance”, whether or not there is within artistic creativity the requirement that one’s art work be maintained. Is it enough to bring something into being and then abandoning it?

I suppose I could have left the Peace Spiral to turn grey and weather gracefully, but I also understood that a good oiling now would prolong its life for another 100 years, thereby, allowing countless more visitors to be inspired and feel hopeful of the future.

The question I like to ask is, “how does one maintain or sustain a healthy emotional and spiritual life?”. The answer might lie in one’s ability to literally grasp hold of the physical.

Feeling down, massage someone.
Feeling angry, chop wood.
Feeling depressed, hug a tree.
Feeling spacy or disconnected, bury your hands into the garden soil.

Yearning to be a more spiritual person? Take a walk in bare feet.

Today’s blog has been written by Sally Horne, Windgrove artist-in-residence from December till the end of February.

My quiet activism: Chinese Medicine and mandalas as a means of creating harmony.

We learn to speak a language. And then within that language many of us, perhaps on a spiritual journey or a journey of seeking meaning and a deeper sense of connection, try to find a language that better articulates and deepens our experience of communication about the world and its inner workings. I am learning the language of Traditional Chinese Medicine. It is all together an art, a science and a spiritual path, and likewise painting mandalas is an art, science and spiritual pathway. Both are intricately intertwined in my life. In many ways learning the language of Chinese Medicine is enabling me more and more to comprehend and to translate the silent language of mandalas and their significance in the healing arts.

As the world of natural therapies grows, the concept of wholistic medicine—the consideration and treatment of healing of a disharmony on physical, mental and spiritual levels—has become well known. It is the deeper aspects of medicine, disharmony of the psycho-emotional and spiritual planes that truly interest me. This is where, I believe, most of our problems reside and where our destructive relationship with the world stems from. Part of what attracts me so much to Chinese Medicine and what I connect with through mandala painting is the grounding in interconnectedness and interdependence that both offer. Chinese medicine communicates a complex system of interactions that does not begin or end with self. Likewise the journey of painting a mandala links into the web that moves beyond self. Both aim to deconstruct notions of self and separation from other through a realigning of the subtlest levels of one’s energetic web of interactions.
 
Chinese medicine speaks of the five aspects of spirit as the energetics that give life to form. These spirit aspects connect with the primordial (Tao, connective unconscious, Buddha nature) and have their grounding in the physical. Being closest to the primordial they are the storehouse of our own personal destiny/pathway and act us guides or conduits of our greater plan. This is expressed in an inspiring interpretation of an ancient Chinese text called Rooted in Spirit: the Heart of Chinese Medicine. The author states that the most significant part of needling when acupuncturing is ensuring that there is a “rooting in the spirits”. By this he means accessing the spirit level of medicine. Loss of communication with oneself leads to loss of communication with others and one’s environment. A closer communication with our spirits leads to a richer, more meaningful, more connected and peace-centered life.

 

So what exactly are mandalas? To me they are visual representations of earthly/heavenly vibrations. They are energetic mappings of the silent underlying rhythms within self and beyond self.

The Process of painting mandalas:
It all begins with an empty circle. This is the beginning of all the mandalas. Sometimes it remains an integral part of the painting, sometimes it loses visibility, but it is ever-present in the foundation.

The empty circle is most significant in that it is a sacred circle that gives birth to intention and endless potential. This sacred circle provides the space for the initial image that comes to me most often during meditation. This image is the key that unlocks the artwork; it is the nucleus from which the layers of imagery unfold. And from there, I disappear into another world of colour, image and vibration. Each layer emerges from the previous and gradually the mandala sprouts into life, fruition and maturation.

The significance of the journey is darkly visible along the way, insight comes in little bursts yet clarity comes in strongly towards the end. Along the way I notice my often tumultuous thoughts and emotions that arise and know that as I paint I am both the receiver and creator of healing vibrations. The act of creating also embodies re-creation, the re-creation of self. I evolve as the mandala evolves. And in turn, as interdependence dictates, this influences the evolution of the earth in its small yet significant way.
 

The Windgrove paintings:
 
The trilogy of paintings that I completed at Windgrove represent a single journey. The only initial intention was that they facilitate in some way the resurrection of a fragmented self, of darning my frayed edges. And that harmonising of self would link into the web of interconnectedness and have a positive influence on the frayed edges and fragmentation of the world.

Initially, I began with two paintings: The Moving Away and The Return. These I worked on simultaneously, all the while dealing with the clashing energetics of the two paintings.
 
#1. The Moving Away: yang in nature, hot, expansive and outward moving; vivid, hard-edged and angular, robust and powerful.
 
#2. The Return: yin in nature, inward and downward spiralling; cooling, shadowy, reflective, circular, soft and quietly powerful.
 
On a personal level the tale is apparent, two opposing forces that were having trouble integrating. Going Away came out strong and with ease while The Return was a personal battle. (Perhaps a struggle to manifest my inner vision, a preference to hold it quietly inside, a fear of displaying my quiet vulnerable feminine side on canvas or fear of expressing the softer emotions.)
 
My struggles are your struggles are the world’s struggles.
 
We see these two opposing energetics at the foundation of Chinese Medicine; the interplay of yin and yang. In the deeper energetics of ourselves, within our yin aspect, we hold our arcane visions, our innate selves, our true pathways. It is the outward and upward moving yang that lifts the energies stored in the yin crevices of our being up and out into the world. Yin is storage, yang is action. In the perfect harmonious interaction of these two opposing forces are the holding and manifestation of the individual and the greater vision. It is hard for me to believe that the greater plan would be one of discord and worldly destruction. The seeds of perfect harmony must be within each of us.
 
#3. The Axis: grounding, unity, centering, interconnection.
 
The Axis represents the meeting point of two fundamental interdependent forces. It aims to facilitate and strengthen the return to a relative state of harmony so that spiritual growth and positive reconnection with all other beings and our environment may flourish.
 
It is difficult to articulate and summarise what my paintings are about because they seem to sit between contradictions. They are both simple and complex. They represent the fragment “and” the whole. They are the mending of self, the mending of other.

They are about nothing and, yet, everything.   
 
 

In order to help fund the Windgrove artist-in-residence program, Sally Horne has kindly agreed to put these three oil paintings up for sale with a third of the sale price of each painting ($1,500) going to the residency program.

Price each: Aus$ 4,500. 
Price includes all taxes, packaging and air freight.

Size: 2ft 6in square / 760mm square

Please contact me for further details:

Up to date info:  the painting “Axis” has been sold.