Life on the Edge

The “giant squid” egg on the beach didn’t actually arrive on the rising tide. That was just me having fun trying to get an interesting photo. Instead, it was sent in a padded box by young fourth grader Patrick Kammar from the Jemicy School near Baltimore, Maryland as part of a “migration project’ that is looking at the survival rate of those species that migrate through the seasons.

The teacher initially wrote: “We’ve had some trouble in the past getting our eggs through Australian Customs intact, but we thought we’d try.”

Well, the egg did make the 25,000 mile journey all in one piece. No Humpty Dumpty here. Not so lucky, though, (and this is what the school’s experiment is looking into) are the dead blue-bottle jelly fish and the never-to-hatch fish eggs seen in the photo alongside Patrick’s egg. Migration is a tricky business. Whether one is a bird, fish or human refugee, moving around the globe trying to survive is fraught with plenty of danger.

PS. For us surfers, seeing blue-bottle jellyfish is both good and bad. They have a nasty sting, but are an unfailing indication of warmer water as they come down to Tasmania on the warm currents from eastern Australia.

Still Another Day #VI

Pardon me, if when I want
to tell the story of my life
it’s the land I talk about.
This is the land.
It grows in your blood
and you grow.
If it dies in your blood
you die out.

Pablo Neruda

A bit worn at the edges and nearly camouflaged, the simple message is still there after two years. Tree took that human written word—once sharply white, crisp, handmade, newly formed—and transformed it into itself: into bark; into bleeding stains of growth and aged lichen-grey peels.

Four letters attached to tree make redundant what tree already knew. Still knows. It was always there, this love within the tree. Only us humans needed to have it spelt out. When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn?

Yesterday.....an email from a friend who had just returned from Scotland:
meanwhile jet lag is keeping me awake - as are the log trucks now every fifteen minutes or so down the southern outlet - on this still night they are like a great roaring decelerating down the hill into town then rumbling down Macquarie Street - what a madness it all is - out there in Europe green is huge - what idiots run our govt down here.

Yesterday.....the editorial in the newspaper asked the question: Should more Tasmanian forests be protected from logging?  I replied:  The real tragedy is that the question is even asked. To continue putting to the axe aged forests thousands of years old, creates a wound in Tasmania’s psyche as great as the stain of its brutal convict days.

We keep denying the life sustaining power of nature; of its immense capacity to love us back into wholeness. Pardon me, but when the last of the ancient trees are cut down, what then?

Oh, the gifts that flow into one’s life daily, if not hourly.

Looking down upon a group of school children from atop a tall grassed over dune yesterday, I couldn’t help but feel lucky. The sun was fully present, there was a gentle off shore breeze and the temperature mild. A perfect gift from nature. And, not just for me because, even though the students might not be totally aware of the gift their teachers and the day had given them, I’m certain that all 16 of those kids were truly enjoying themselves and feeling happy to be out of a “walled” classroom and into the great classroom of the ocean. The zings of exhilaration pulsing through their growing bodies (and developing hearts and minds) were gifting them with good health and a sense of well being not always present in an inner city, paved over play ground.

Even the post office has been generous.

Firstly, a gift box arrived from Zimbabwe care of Bev Reeler. She wrote:

“What can I send across the planet – what threads of Africa that can be held in your hands on the other side of the earth?”

Along with a shaman’s necklace, lucky bean tree seeds, a pinch of earth and seven feathers were three stones to be placed on top of the Peace Garden’s ancestral midden:
1 crystal rock—from the Zambezi valley, Deka river mouth near Victoria Falls
1 basalt stone—from the Indian Ocean, Mboyti, Eastern Cape
1 brown stone—from Mana Pools, Zambezi Valley

Bev conducts Tree of Life workshops for torture victims in Zimbabwe (for this and other environmental/social work she became a Windgrove Laureate last year). Taking her stones from the box, I arranged them at 12, 3 and 9 o’clock around the larger “key hole” or “tree of life” stone given to Windgrove by an aboriginal elder from Cape York, Australia four years ago.

The gifts keep piling up.

Also, in the mail came a monetary gift in the form of $5,000 from my dear friend, colleague and fairy-godfather, Paulus Berensohn. He, himself, was given money to pass on to three charities of his choosing and Windgrove was one of them. Such a wonderful gift will certainly allow the vision for larger artist-in-residence facilities to move off the drawing board and into windows, boards and nails.

So, if there are any more people out there with a desire to help the Windgrove Centre grow on any level, please send stones or checks to:

Windgrove Centre
Roaring Beach
Nubeena, Tasmania 7184
Australia

Like many other lucky people, I received Paulus Berensohn’s Valentine card this week. This year, however, his drawing is, at once, more powerful and more pleading.

Opening up the card, Paulus writes on the inside:

“Help”

the cry of the Heart

--- to offer and give

--- to need and receive

--- to each other and our earth

For Paulus, the heart, in all its manifest shapes and sizes, is asking for help. In this time of global chaos, the cry of the heart is not specifically personal or solely human. Gaia also is hurting; anima mundi also is hurting; all creatures great and small are hurting. Love is needed everywhere.

On the morning of this Valentine’s Day, I found, half drowned in the bottom of a water jug, a Little Pygmy-possum desperately trying to stay alive. It had fallen in looking for something to drink, but due to its small size—two inches long, 60 mm—it was unable to climb or jump out of the jug. Boy, did it look miserable.

While resident artist, Sally, cuddled the little guy close to her belly to help lessen any hypothermic conditions, a hot-water bottle was prepared and positioned in the bottom of a box, followed by lots of soft clothing. Here, the pygmy-possum was gently placed in a warming hollow of clothes. Giving us what looked like a heartfelt “sweet thank you”, it then burrowed deep into the fabric and disappeared out of sight.

Nothing could be done now but wait until nightfall and see if this tiny nocturnal marsupial revived enough to climb out of the box and find its way beneath the oven where, I suppose, it feasted nightly on the bits of food and crumbs dropped by the messy chef.

When Sally and I returned late from a trip to Hobart for our own food gathering and a dinner out, we noticed that the box was empty. We went to bed sleepy in the contented knowledge that all had turned out okay.

But, as in all matters of the heart, the doors of compassion, joy and pain keep opening and shutting. The “little guy” turned out to be a mother as, the next morning, I found two dead babies on the kitchen floor, most likely drowned while in the pouch of its mother and subsequently removed when she, herself, recovered. A third was later found by Sally.

All three are now buried under a stone at the base of the ancestral midden. May their little spirits rest in peace. 

I see the rainbow, but I also see the storm.

This week a 14 year old boy from Melbourne, who had recently visited Windgrove with his school mates, sent me a letter.

“You are definitely one of the most amazing people I have ever met! Your determination to save the environment is fantastic. The experiences that we had were nothing like anything we had experienced before.”

But I also received an email, part of which read: “......I take offence at your comments.”

In short, my determination to save the environment was fantastic for one person and an offence for another. The thing is, they were both correct.

The latter email came from someone whom I have known for around 15 years in the environment movement and who has even stayed at Windgrove a few times with his wife and child. He also works at the local Council and has a role to play in how the dirt bike noise issue gets resolved.

Earlier this week, when it seemed to us eleven property owners at Roaring Beach that our multiple letters of complaint about the dirt bikes were not being acted upon by our Council after the return of the dirt bikes on the weekend, well...... what can I say, but that I wrote a quite heated letter to the Council and castigated everyone, including my friend, for not being professional and upholding the law. I even wrote the friend and said something along the line of:  “If I have to choose between friendship or the environment, the environment will win.”.

I have since apologised, and my friend may or may not forgive me. The point that I’m trying to make, however, is that doing a fantastic job for the environment is not ever easy. Friendships can be created, but friendships can as easily be lost.

If people are having a sense of deja vu looking at the above photo, they are correct in their assumption that they have seen those hands before. Just over a year ago (18 August 2003) I wrote a blog entry entitled "Holding the Vision" and used this photo. I am including it again for three reasons. Firstly, today is the first day that my fingers can type comfortably. Last Friday while swimming in relatively calm waters I pulled a shoulder muscle and lived with a high level of discomfort until I could get to Hobart to see a physio-therapist on Wednesday. And not one but two. Tethys did some osteopathic work that helped tremendously in relieving the chronic pain. Then Michael, my masseur for the past 19 years, did some deep tissue work that complimented Tethy's earlier work. Their hands were healing hands for my neck and shoulder and I am tremendously grateful for the skills these two people possess. Secondly, during the nights preceding the visit to Hobart, sleeping was nigh impossible. (Let me admit to doing some self inflicted injury by thinking a hot water bottle on the shoulder would help relieve the pain, whereas, the correct thing to do would have been to put an ice pack on the strain. I only made things worse.) Anyway, during those nights I would question whether or not I would ever again have the ability to use my hands to carve in the way I am used to carving. This nightmarish fear in the dark space of night was quite scary. Only now, as the future outlook seems not to be a surgical one, rather a management one, can I marvel at the beautiful complexity (and fragility) that is our body. How astoundingly wonderful are just our hands. And thirdly, while pondering what photo to use for this week's blog entry, I received an email from the Trinity Respite Center that read in part: "We are a rural, non-profit program that takes care of seniors with Alzheimer's. We loved the image of "Holding a Vision," and wanted to check to see about using this image for a publication..." When I wrote back agreeing, I also asked where in this internet world they existed and how did they come by this photo. The reply (in part): "We are located in Ashland, Oregon and serve families living with memory loss. We hit "images" in Google and then "hands" and Voila! Clip art! We have a day activities program for 22 seniors with Alzheimer's, stroke or related dementias. Your photo will be the front of a card we are using to hold the vision for compassionate care for our seniors. One man here claps when he is happy--often--and his hands are strangely beautiful. It is inspiring to know that people like you are out there. Your sense of service makes it possible for us to get out our mailing without more angst over the image. You must be a lovely person." Makes my pain very bearable indeed.

Why I Wake Early Hello, sun in my face. Hello, you who make the morning and spread it over the fields and into the faces of the tulips and the nodding morning glories, and into the windows of, even, the miserable and the crotchety --- best preacher that ever was, dear star, that just happens to be where you are in the universe to keep us from ever-darkness, to ease us with warm touching, to hold us in the great hands of light --- good morning, good morning, good morning. Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness. ******************* This early morning, before the storm clouds swept in from the west, I was able to witness the eclipsed orange moon hang tenderly in the diminishing starry sky; its coloured beauty totally dependent upon the very sun that Mary Oliver so eloquently writes about in the above, newly released poem (received in yesterday's mail). And, although my little camera wasn't able to catch this particular wonder, the same light powering the moon's beauty, was as piercingly beautiful bouncing off the cliffs of Roaring Beach.

The squall has passed and I now sit in the far corner reading more of Mary's poems, letting the sun stream into the house and touch me also with its healing light; letting me, once again, start the day in happiness, in kindness.

Last night I tried to write a journal entry using this photo of the ancestral bench's shadow after receiving an email from a friend who had movingly related the dying of his grandmother, "a young catholic girl named Herta with a high Nazi uncle who followed her Jewish boyfriend and his family from Austria to Shanghai China, who gave birth to twins, of which only the stronger, my mum, survived and then emigrated to Australia as a post-war refugee to make a new life." I wanted to talk about the importance of connecting to the stories of the dead (our ancestors) in order to have some form of guidance to lead us to the future. But.... my eyes could not stay open; my mind closed down about the time the last evening light left the sky and the siren call of pillows cushioning my drooping head was impossible to refuse.

This morning, however, looking out over the above landscape with a recharged body and soul, I fell in love with "life" yet again. These two photos, one looking west toward Roaring Beach and the other looking north east out over the Roaring Beach water catchment, convey the crispness and clarity that was present, but not the full sensual quality of this amphitheather. Six cockatoos flew squawking into the valley, four surfers were letting out screams of joy while riding the breaking dawn waves and the subtle fragrance of thousands of coastal flowers hung in the air. A chorus of banjo frogs provided light entertainment. As I held onto the preciousness of this moment, I thought of the the Greenpeace tree sitters in the Styx Valley and my heart flew out to them in a joyous exhalation of praise for their brave work in defending this earth. Catch them on their own weblog: http://weblog.greenpeace.org/tasmania/