Life on the Edge

The above photo of Wedge island, which is just off the southern end of Windgrove, conveys nature as a multiple of dualisms: beautiful and sinister, foreboding and enticing, stormy and calm. There is no one description of nature that fits. The flip side of today’s description will be tomorrow’s reality. Similar, I suppose (if memory serves me correct), to what Tom Robbins wrote about in Even Cowgirls Get the Blues when he said: Everything is beautiful; nothing is sacred. Everything is sacred; nothing is beautiful.

The only issue subject to debate with any of the several qualities of nature is their relative weighting or frequency of occurrence. 

I say this because of a comment by an art critic who, in his review last year of an “ephemeral” art exhibition of site specific sculpture, wrote: Anyone who has watched a David Attenborough documentary will know that peace, tranquility and spiritual renewal are entirely foreign to the natural world. Tennyson’s nature red in tooth and claw is much closer to reality.

Peace, tranquility and spiritual renewal—entirely foreign to the natural world? Give me a break.

My immediate response is to say that the reviewer has been watching too much TV and that he should leave the city and try living surrounded by nature for a period of time. If so, he would come to know that the operative word for nature is “benign”; that, if action and drama are to be filmed, hours of waiting are the norm. Certainly, there is a violent aspect surrounding territorial squabbles and the acquisition of food, but after 15 years of watching the eagles float endlessly for hours at a time, I have only seen an eagle red in tooth and claw twice. 

When I encounter a snake along a Windgrove path, I always manage to levitate higher than I can when meditating, but these encounters are a sum total of 15 seconds per year. Compare this with the countless hours of walking I do on these paths and my point is made: if drama is what one is after, then be prepared to wait. Peace and tranquility are the rule rather than the exception.

Capturing Wedge Island in the right light has taken years.

The storms that bend and shape the trees happen only infrequently.

It was the 5th anniversary of the Peace Fire this past weekend so it seemed important to honour this through all night meditations, cups of tea and quiet conversation while the moon inched slowly across the sky. There was even a tented swag set-up to crawl into when weariness overtook the body in the wee hours of the morning.

Beyond the seriousness of the occasion itself, the best part of “camping out “ was that it all happened in my backyard. It was just plain fun to be able to spend the night camping around a campfire so close to the house. Just like us kids did when we were young and a little fearful of ghosts and other things that moved in the dark.

Knowing a quick cookie run into the house is possible, a little courage (along with the crumbs) finds its way into many a brave seven year old’s sleeping bag.

Now, as I think about kids and backyard camping, I am reminded of a time thirty years ago where there wasn’t a backyard with a safe house within reach.

In the lightly forested area of Roan Mountain on the border of North Carolina and Tennessee and at the end of a mile long spur off the main Appalachian Trail, my buddy, Dan, and I, along with two others, set up camp after a day walk of easy hiking, kite flying and playing with the gods. At sunset, while taking in the beauty of a pollen enhanced red sky (hence, “smokey mountains"), we could faintly hear boisterous chatter coming from enthused boys setting up their own camp back down the trail from us. Most likely they were young scouts on a first camping adventure. Most likely, being off the main trail they were unaware of anyone else camping nearby.

Later, being a bit curious about who they might be, Dan and I set off towards their camp in the dark using only the light of the moon to guide us. Our intention was to just sneak a peek at their camp set-up and then walk back to ours.

Carefully darting from tree to shrub to tree so as not to reveal ourselves, we got, if not exactly on top of the tents, fairly close; enough to hear the many peppered conversations between the 20 or so boys.

Occasionally, one of the adult “leaders” would belt out: “Quiet down.” “Shut up.” “It’s time to go to sleep”.  Following these commands, there would be a few seconds of silence. Then, the first murmuring would begin and within the time it would take a marshmallow to burn, every tent would erupt in giggles and the rapid fire chatter of boy energy all accompanied with any number of flashlights wildly piercing the canvas of the tents not too unlike the search lights of antiaircraft gunners frantically looking for enemy planes.

Then, for whatever reason, possibly because of a boyish nature still resident in the two of us, Dan and I started to howl like wolves.

Big, ferocious wolves. Big enough to eat several boys at once.

Well, a star’s twinkle could be heard in the silence that instantly dropped down upon the tents.

Not one word. From them or us.

Little boy imaginations began to stir.

One minute passed, then two. A total silence with not a single flashlight piercing the dark.

Then came one very soft, yet audible cry from one very scared boy. Then, from a second tent came another cry. Then another. Before long the whole camp and every tent was flooded in teary, fearful crying. Between sobs were the words: “I want to go home.”

Dan and I didn’t know what to do. Reveal it was all a joke? But then the boys might become even more fearful knowing there were two crazy humans out there.

We slunk guiltily back to our tent promising to return to the scout camp in the morning to apologise. But when dawn arrived and we summoned up the courage to face the wrath of the little boys, when we got to the camp it was no longer there. At what hour did they pack up and leave? If it was in the night, there would have been no home to go to just 100 metres from the campsite. This was no one’s backyard.

To this day, I wonder whether or not I so ruined someone’s first camping experience that they never again have ventured outside the confines of their home on a summer’s evening to seek out the peaceful beauty that could be there for them on a mountain top somewhere along the Appalachian Trail.

Then again, maybe there is an ecologist or two with Ph.D.’s still searching the hidden caves of Roan Mountain looking for that elusive creature who is said to be half wolf, half man and who survives solely upon the blood of young boys.

The first tragedy to strike our tight knit community this past week was the passage by the upper house of the pulp mill fast track legislation that had been approved by the lower house the previous week. The bill is so bad that it does not allow any prosecution of proven criminal intent by Gunns (the pulp mill builder) to be permissible. There is no public input allowed into the assessment process and no scientist other than the appointed government consultant can make any recommendations or point out any flaws in the environmental material submitted by Gunns. The Australian Medical Association is aghast by the legislation and most legal scholars are astounded by its blatant denial of democratic process. Yet, it gets passed.

The second tragedy was on Saturday when a father had to bury his son; a mother her child.

Too young, too young, were the words most often heard floating across the muffled hush of 300 or so mourners come to give their last respects to Tom and to offer heartfelt, if ineffective, support to the grieving parents, Pete and Anna. 

Part of Pete’s eulogy spoke of his son wanting to live an “authentic life” and not be consumed with the accumulation of material things. Aside from a massive collection of books, Tom wanted to travel light and to devote himself to honest work. Work that would be for the betterment of all.

While sitting in the funeral home’s chapel, I noticed to the right of me was Christine Milne, the Green’s federal Senator. To the left was Duncan Kerr, federal Labor parliamentarian. The one has been outspoken in her condemnation of the scandalous ethics of the state Labor party; the other totally silent. Duncan Kerr, although a federal politician and the former attorney general of Australia, would know that what his state Labor party mates were doing was totally unethical, yet, to date, he has not defended the rule of good governance with even one spoken or written word. 

In the hospital, just before his death, Tom wrote something along the lines of:  “A good architect can look at the foundation of a building and imagine what the completed structure will be. I hope my family and friends can look at my life to date, my foundation so to speak, and see that I would have been a decent person who would have done good.”

Tom’s brief life fell as ashes on the one politician and as feathered kisses on the other.

Driving home, I will have to admit to feeling a surge of anger towards those politicians who would desecrate, not only the state’s environmental wonders, but the basis of democratic law. What sort of role models to our young are our politicians when they tear up the rule book on political transparency and sell their souls publicly and blatantly to deceit and political grovelling.

In the town of Sorrell, I passed the state Labor office and felt an urge to get a can of paint and spray, in red, SHAME across the names of the five politicians posted in the windows.

By Dunally, I wanted to take out full page advertisements in the newspaper denouncing the actions of our Labor and Liberal politicians.

By Eaglehawk Neck, I wanted to use the billboards across the city of Hobart to effectively keep the issue alive.

In the end, I did none of the above. The spray painting seemed too violent a reaction while the ads and billboard signage proved too costly.

But I have and will continue to do what I can through letter writing and engaging in dialogue with as many as will listen. In no small way this honours Tom’s memory by offering Pete and Anna and us older folk a path of committed hope for the future.  For you see, the natural cycle of passing on to a younger generation issues of responsibility was broken somewhat with Tom’s untimely death. The baton of social justice issues he had been preparing to carry has been passed back to us. It might be that us oldies have to carry the flag of protest a little longer. Breath in deeply and keep on truckin’.

Tom is now on the other side of the song, but if we talk up our walk while walking our talk, our collective voices will be sweet music to him.

And the meaning of the top photo?

Mike, a true “journeyman” carpenter from a German wood guild passed through Windgrove last week carrying nothing save for a walking stick and a small bundle of clothes. For a minimum of three years and one day, he told me he has to “do good and bring happiness to others through his woodworking skills”.

Tom travelled light. Mike travels light. May we all travel light.