Life on the Edge

These photos are four years apart with the most recent taken just yesterday evening. The Drop Stone’s ageing over the intervening years is clearly evident with the freshly oiled, brightly vibrant, sandy yellow of newly finished huon pine contrasting sharply with the grey, weathered look of today’s bench.

Change is seen elsewhere. 

Looking at the angle of shadow cast by the two bases of the bench, the time of day might be the same, but the larger shadow now darkening the left end of the bench deck comes from the she-oak tree grown taller.

Looking at the beach, four years ago there was a lot more sand to be seen. Over the past year this sand has been washed away by a series of strong storms and now the underling stones have been exposed. I am intrigued by this shift and find a fascination in examining the long term cyclic nature of the coming and going of sand on the beach. However, I will admit to liking the sand more than the stones.

More of a daily change, and probably not so easily grasped, is the direction of the wind. In the above photo the wind would have been “off shore”, resulting in a clearer, more defined background. The bottom photo is of an “on shore” breeze, resulting in a brighter, more cloudy looking background because of the salt spray being carried inland and the sunlight being bounced off of it and directed back to the camera. Even the sky appears cloudy.

Coming back to the bench, the big question I always face is whether or not to accept the process of change time and weather bring. Do I leave them to age gracefully or do I constantly sand them back to a more youthful finish? Certainly, the stony look of the aged bench has a softer quality and blends in nicely with its surrounding environment (especially, with the stony grey beach). I approach it as one does a well worn pair of favourite shoes. Better for wear and loaded with memories.

Yet, looking back at how the bench presented itself on the day it was first placed in its commanding position on top of the cliff above the surf, I recall a “freshness” that was exciting to behold, and, like any finely dressed, good looking stranger strutting into town, it commanded attention. 

To bring the bench back to its former “newness” would only take a days work to undo four years of “ageing”.  It does cross my mind. But there I leave it. Not out of laziness, but because I live at Roaring Beach, not Los Angeles.

On Tuesday I went down to the beach early in the day to sit and watch my Melbourne friend and his son catch some surf. They were excited.

Now, a couple of days later, Craig and Ben and the rest of their family have continued their journey up the east coast of Tasmania. And me? I am still sitting by the the beach watching wave after wave continue their steady march onto the sands of time.

Today, being the equinox when supposedly all light falls equally everywhere around the globe, I am wondering whether or not a father and son can ever reach any sort of equanimity with each other? 

As children, do we ever grow up in the eyes of our parents no matter what our age?

Once, when I was 42 years old and visiting my father, I ordered a coffee at the local cafe we had gone to for breakfast. “What? Are you drinking coffee now?”, he asked in a tone just short of reprimanding, as though I was still the 17 year old athlete preparing for the state swimming championships.

Do we ever forget being the child?

In the following poem Stanley Kunitz has this reflection:

The Portrait

I find it interesting that when I focus my attention on one thing, it reappears in another form elsewhere.

For the past few days I have been painting steel pickets with a white paint. In the full sun they are bright. Painting them forces me to squint. Painting them also forces me to think.

The white stakes were made to mark out the new boundaries of the land being sold.  As I was punching them into the ground a few hundred meters apart, not only did the “whiteness” of the stakes stand out strongly against the background, I also began to think of the color “white” as synonymous with “territory”. 

Walking home, “white” and “territory” popped up everywhere. 

The blossoming native currant bush with its hundreds of tiny white flags beckoned the busy bees to enter into their territorial space.

Out of the blue green ocean the white flag of the cascading wave emerged to beckon surfers into its territorial waters.

After having seen more white in one day than I would normally see in a week—even though the white was always there—I began to think that how a person views the world influences what they see in the world.

Today my focus was on white pickets and marking territory; hence, I saw more of this everywhere than I normally would. Likewise, when a fireman goes home, his senses are more in tune to see fire (or its potential) than mine would be. A police officer has better antenna to notice crime. Lawyers see defamation in every word (and money). 

The Dali Lama? Because he meditates on loving kindness constantly, is he more capable than others in finding the love that resides in everyone and everything?

In other words, given that there is probably an equal amount of joy and suffering in the world, to have more joy in our lives it is not a matter of inventing it or working desperately to create it. We don’t have to do much more than just start seeing it. It is there already. Instead of focusing on the pain of life, squint your eyes and learn to see the abundant beauty that is everywhere, now, calling out to us to come suckle on the sweetness of its nectar. 

And one last thing.

Walking out onto my deck lately, I have noticed the beautiful white, painterly markings left by the tenant kookaburras marking out their territory in the branch above.

This delicious looking, round, red apple is an organic apple. Many people talk about wanting to buy organic produce, but instead, choose non-organic because the price is cheaper. Most likely, these same people throughout the year give generously to environmental organisations.

However, probably more important than funding WWF or Greenpeace is to use one’s money to support, even demand, organic produce be sold at one’s local grocery store. I say this, not because organic produce is tastier and healthier (which it is), but because supporting organic and biodynamic farming is the single most effective way to help preserve and sustain our environment.

None or minimal chemical usage is part of the reason, but what I want to focus on in today’s blog is dirt; that layer of top soil that has to grow all the food required to feed six billion people daily.

Only a tiny portion of the earth’s land is capable of producing food. Current farming and forestry practices are diminishing this thin layer of fertile top soil. Organic/biodynamic farming seeks to bolster and increase the fertility of the soil.

How much of the earth’s land is available to grow food?

Imagine the earth is the above apple. Take this apple and cut it into four quarters. One part is covered by land. The others are covered by water. Discard these three pieces.

Cut this land section in half. One of these halves is covered with mountains, desert or ice. Discard this piece.

Cut the remaining piece into fourths. Three of these are rocky, too wet, too hot, too infertile, or covered with roads or cities. Discard these.

Only 1/32 of the apple remains.

The thin layer of red of this section represents the topsoil that must feed the world.

We had better look after it.