Life on the Edge

One can never know for certain that the blessedness felt today will be upon us tomorrow. So, how do we survive the change, the ebbing tide? And what sustains us when the moon of our being moves into those voids of the unknown, totally lost? Who or what can pull us out?

It is April 1996, the last Sunday. Morning has such a serene sweetness to it that I can be seen in my studio, not hunched over the work at hand, but looking out over the she-oak and sagg pastured landscape so absorbed into it that I just stand there doing nothing. It is a delicious meditation. Early afternoon and I am on the beach idly poking around rocks and tidal pools with a tranquility that borders on sleep.

Then the helicopters start to fly past, low and directly overhead. From Hobart towards, I guess, Port Arthur. And then back again. Then again, and again like something out of Vietnam. Not having a telephone, I walk to my nearest neighbour’s house out of curiosity. No one at home. Nor at another neighbour’s house. Roaring Beach Road, normally busy on a warm, Sunday afternoon, has absolutely no traffic on it. Back home I do the very unusual and listen to the 6 o’clock news on the truck radio.

My world in an instant unravels; its goodness vanquished by the murders of 35 people. Amongst people I know—three dead and one seriously wounded. And, as if to make the darkness darker, the next day I learn of the suicide of a friend.

A long, very long month later I wake up early, before dawn, with the full moon slapping me on the face. Knowing that I will not get back to sleep, I dress warmly and climb to the top of the hill back of the bus and out to a cliff edge that rises 200 metres above the waters of Storm Bay and the Southern Ocean. I say a prayer for the Port Arthur victims. Sitting down, I watch the yellow-orange moon with its watery shaft slowly descend way to the south-west behind Bruny Island. In the pregnant half hour of half light before the full dawn, I continue to remain motionless, content to watch the landscape and seascape and sky-scape awake to a new day and allow myself the pleasure of immersion into its beauty. Deep within, the beginnings of a heart purr are felt.

Then… right at eye level just a few metres out in front of me on its early morning breakfast run, a white breasted sea eagle ever so majestically floats past on grand, outstretched wings.

For an instant and in that moment only, the “I” and “Thou” merge and I have the sensation that I am observing myself. Myself the hungry eagle and the thunderous cloud; the fruiting tree, the sea’s water. All is One. The awesome beauty and pain of life becomes inextricably linked and all seems just. Those nights that I woke up crying after Port Arthur were as much a part of life as this beautiful dawn. The great Wheel contains it all and I am intimately fused onto it.

Within a few seconds I lose the ability to hold onto this truth, but I feel, none the less, blest. On this particular Sunday morning, nature has given me a sermon on the mount. I have tasted of the sacrament and it is good. With the sun beginning to warm up my backside, I understand that a new day has begun; that a hearty breakfast waits for me, too; that there is honest work to be done in the healing of this planet, friends to gather round and play to be had.

..............................

The above was written as part of the self-published monograph, Earthlinks, 1997.
The photo is of a wedge tailed eagle,

Full moon tonight. Banjo frogs are trilling. The duck weed is layering pink over the pond.

All of this is a memory kick for a Mary Oliver poem that influenced me greatly into wanting to immerse myself into “the other”. Whether or not I succeed doesn’t really matter, for the journey has been and continues to be a real thrill.

Mud?  Love it.

Pink Moon—the Pond

You think it will never happen again.
Then, one night in April,
the tribes wake trilling.
You walk down to the shore.
Your coming stills them,
but little by llittle the silence lifts
until song is everywhere
and your soul rises from your bones
and strides out over the water.
It is a crazy thing to do --
for no one can live like that,
floating around in the darkness
over the gauzy water.
Left on the shore your bones
keep shouting “come back”!
But your soul won’t listen;
in the distance it is unfolding
like a pair of wings, it is sparking
like hot wires.  So,
like a good friend,
you decide to follow.
You step off the shore
and plummet to your knees--
you slog forward to your thighs
and sink to your cheekbones --
and now you are caught
by the cold chains of the water --
you are vanishing while around you
the frogs continue to sing, driving
their music upward through your own throat,
not even noticing
you are something else.
And that’s when it happens --
you see everything thru their eyes,
their joy, their necessity;
you wear their webbed fingers;
your throat swells.
And that’s when you know
you will live whether you will or not,
one way or another,
because everything is everything else,
one long muscle.
It’s no more mysterious than that.
So you relax, you don’t fight it anymore,
the darkness coming down
called water,
called spring,
called the green leaf, called
a women’s body
as it turns into mud and leaves,
as it beats in it’s cage of water,
as it turns like a lovely spindle
in the moonlight, as it says
Yes.

Mary Oliver

What’s in the laying of an egg?

Especially an egg from a wild duck. Right in the middle of the path by the Split Rock. No nest; just there on the ground all by itself.

I saw the pair of ducks fly off as I was approaching the Peace Pond for my morning walk at dawn. The egg, when I came upon it within three minutes, was cold indicating that it had lain on the ground for some time without either of the ducks sitting on it. Usually, ducks lay between 6 and ten eggs in some sort of nest; whether a clump of grass or in the hollow of a low lying tree.

So, what to make of it? Being where it was right on the path next to the Split Rock, it is tempting to augur some meaning out of it. (In Roman times, an augur being a religious figure who interpreted omens derived from the flight, singing, and feeding of birds.)

One “interpretation” is that just giving birth to an idea isn’t always enough. There is a nurturing phase where the vulnerable egg (or the newly hatched idea) has to be seriously cared for or, otherwise, will not grow to maturity.

I think of the trees I have been planting and wonder if I am doing enough for them. I put the seedling into the prepared, moist hole. Next I put down a protective mulch matt around the base of the seedling to prohibit competing grass from sucking up vital water, and then, using four bamboo stakes, I put a tall plastic, tube like bag around the seedling to prevent rabbits and wallabies from nibbling on its tender shoots as well as protecting it from the howling, drying winds and salt laden air. After this, over the next few years I regularly inspect the bags and fix up those that need fixing. Could I do more?

I think of the small residency program I am planning for Windgrove. Have I given enough attention to detail? To its financing or the placement of buildings? I certainly wouldn’t want to lay a goose egg with this vision.

Then again, maybe this particular pair of ducks were just plain “goofy” and hadn’t planned on having any eggs at all. It might have just popped out unexpected like.

Perhaps, as Mary Oliver writes, the egg was an invitation to look:

“When the Sufi poet whirled, was he looking
outward, to the mountains so solidly there
in a white-capped ring, or was he looking
to the center of everything: the seed, the egg, the idea
that was also there...”

Perhaps, it could simply be a gift. To me.

Whether intentional or not, I thank the ducks for presenting me with this pale, creamy brown egg that now rests on a shelf in the kitchen pantry. Tomorrow for breakfast, on top of three pancakes will sit bacon and one fried egg. Along with the maple syrup running down the sides, will be dark yellow duck yoke.

The dark curtain of squall moves steadily towards me.

The winter sun is low; moving to set. It casts a final warming light onto a green, seductive sea.

Standing here now is to stand in a moment of grace even while knowing all will abruptly end.

Looking south past Wedge island, through the line of obscuring rain, is a vast wild empty plain of open water.

All the way to the Antarctic, they say. Some 3000 kilometres.

Standing here now is to stand in a moment of time.

To be alive in this very moment. How precious.

In twenty years (or perhaps tonight in my sleep), when the final, dark curtain falls, will I awaken on the other side of anything? 

I take a deep breath and give thanks for this moment of pure earthly bliss.

Living life at the edge calls me to be present. Demands of me to be present.

I take a second breath. Then turn my back on the approaching dark and walk towards the remaining light.

The first day of the New Year, 2005. May love fall upon everyone. May the fear in our hearts lessen. May the grief still present in those people who have loss children, partners, parents and friends during the past year diminish enough to allow them to enter peacefully into this new year. There is still much beauty available to all of us. Our yearning for love; our desire to be loved is an affirmation of the goodness of our past loves. The potential of this new year is vast. I am excited. And, who knows the form love will take when it walks into our life again?

At the beach yesterday, I built an arch of stones. (Dear reader, it's the stones I want you to look at!) Earlier, having been preoccupied with the news of the ever increasing number of people killed during the Indian Ocean tsunami, and, being restless, I started to pile stones together to settle the dark rumblings within my heart and mind. Looking at the finished arch with its keystone firmly wedged into place between the thirty stones, a small awareness, a bit of wisdom emerged. Sometimes I feel that the financial, social, emotional and artistic pressures in my life are too much to bear at times; that I am at the breaking point more often than not and want to ease the burden, the weight on my shoulders and heart so to speak. Looking at these stones, however, one cannot but begin to recognise a simple truth: that their ability to gracefully curve; their ability to hang delicately in space, is the result of pressure. Without the weight of the keystone pushing down relentlessly onto the other stones, all would collapse into a pile of little value. There is a purpose in this pressure. It is not my, or anyone's, role to totally rid oneself of life's pressures because that is to deny the role life has in shaping us; in developing our character. Living a life "totally" free of burden would be a life too light, too carefree. There would be nothing to give it shape and help hold it together. A priest was once given the opportunity to slay the devil and free the world of the devil's darkness and influences. But in the end, the priest let him free because he knew that the devil served a purpose in making us compassionate, tolerant and, ultimately, more loving. The key is to harness the forces of life, both light and dark, and use them in ways that sustain our lives and open us up into expressions of grace and strength. Then, and only then, will beauty walk beneath our arching, slightly aching outstretched arms, through and into a more real embrace.

I thought about community today. About how important it is in our lives.

Stacking wood left handed (with my right arm in a sling, resting), I picked up a piece of wood clearly etched with the trails of eight grubs travelling off into adulthood in two pairs of four. Certainly, they were individuals, as evidenced by the clear line of their solo journeys, but in the dark beneath the bark of the eucalyptus, they ate and moved along shoulder to shoulder. Companionship and a sense of camaraderie must have made their blind travels a bit more bearable. Living as I do, alone, I sometimes wonder where my community resides. The answer I know is "everywhere", but on the occasional day, at a certain moment when a cloud might occlude the sun's light or when a ravin calls despondently, the chill of being separated from others can pierce my heart. The feeling fades fast, though, if I remember to touch wood and call out: "part of me". Robert Francis writes about the joy of socially hanging out and conversing with friends. Waxwings Four tao philosophers as cedar waxwings chat on a February berrybush in sun, and I am one. Such merriment and such sobriety -- the small wild fruit on the tall stalk -- was this not always my true style? Above an elegance of snow, beneath a silk-blue sky a brotherhood of four birds. Can you mistake us? To sun, to feast, and to converse and all together -- for this I have abandoned all my other lives

The ocean yesterday was relatively quiet. The exposed sand meant an easy walk, once again, to the middle of the beach where I put on my flippers and head into the surf. Last week, storm waves were breaking to the top of the inclined stones as seen in the photo. Although the walking was a little more tricky, the clattering and chattering of the stones as they rolled and tumbled together under the waves brought back a memory of several years ago when a similar sound was heard. I wrote about it in my published monograph, Earth Links, in 1997. Let me share it again.

The Stones I stopped and listened to the stones the other morning. There's a section of beach where tidal currents and wave action have washed away the sand exposing a pile of rounded stones about the size of grapefruit. These aren't spread out level, but incline to the deteriorating top edge of a sand dune. Normally, in my early morning run I would skirt this section, running a bit below it; moving gingerly yet quickly to the other side where the beach once again becomes flat and sandy. However, during a higher king tide, a chance wave hit just as I was in the middle, carrying itself right to the top and causing me to scamper upward to keep my sneakers dry. When the wave rolled in, it had the sound of most waves as they break foaming on the shore. But when it returned as a smooth backwash, it rolled and knocked together all the stones beneath it. Such a wondrous sound. In squatted rapture I waited for several more of the larger waves to repeat this Balinese like clacking of instruments. "Peal me again, again, again", I heard the stones repeatedly ask of the water. It was timeless this sound, as though the beach stones and waves had been rehearsing together for centuries. For a moment the necklace shape of the beach became Earth's rosary and the beads were pressed just once for me. In that moment, I felt holy.

Two days before Christmas and this cactus blooms. Out of a seemingly thorny and tough plant whose existence is shaped by an arid environment and extreme fluctuations in temperature from sweltering to freezing within the same day, this fragile trumpet of exquisite delicacy was born. Coming as it did at this time of year, this flowering causes me to wonder that if the Christmas message of "peace and goodwill to all" is to happen, it depends upon a certain willingness of people to remove themselves from their comfort zones somewhat, throw themselves more willingly into adverse conditions (albeit with a protective cloak of awareness) and, thereby, create the conditions necessary to blossom into love, compassion and forgiveness. Two neighbours are now locked in an argument over the felling of trees along a portion of road that is my driveway. There is justified pain and anguish for both parties. Having designed, surveyed, constructed and maintained this section of road for eleven years, even I was initially devastated by the visual, destructive impact. Now, though, I only want peace to descend upon this land. Now, though, I only know that for it to happen we must all be willing to sit with all our neighbours and talk openingly, face to face, of where we hurt. And listen. Only then, will the possibility of a lasting peace begin to unfold. Only then will the negative energies enveloping the land begin to dissipate into nothingness and cause no further destruction. Oh, it is so much easier to remain in anger and pain then to "face" the discomfort of being in dialogue to birth a natural justice. But try we must because not only does our individual health depend upon it, the whole world depends upon it. I offer another portion of a letter from Africa as a reminder of what can be accomplished through this approach. From Bev: "In these last months in Pretoria I have witnessed some very different lenses In the Tree of Life workshops. We have�listened to�the sort of stories that no one ever wants to hear: stories of pain and horror inflicted on Zimbabweans by fellow Zimbabweans. We have sat whilst grown men have cried at the hugeness of the torment experienced. Over the past few weeks we have witnessed stories of such courage,�and�hope and endurance of love and loyalties and friendship, that we have been awed and humbled� by the greatness of the human spirit; have watched it soar above the horizon and celebrate the stars. � We have watched people who have been�separated and isolated by violence and intimidation, speaking of love and friendship forming networks of support, gathering their strength and moving before us, leading the way past the power of a dictator who has separated them with fear and gather together -�a new gathering dream: � A�home where we stand together in peace." ************** May this Christmas be the beginning of a flowering of peace for all living beings. In the New Year may we find the courage to move beyond fear and anger.