Life on the Edge

The busiest part of today came this morning when I showed 22 kids around from the Hobart Catholic school, John Paul II. Oh, to be that young and exuberant again; full of curiosity, spice, fun and boundless energy. They were a nice combination of being well mannered and wild at the same time. What a treat for me. I loved how the little girl (in photo on the left) carefully crept up to the edge of the cliff, daring herself to venture closer with each step. Will she always be this brave? Yes, I had a captive audience. And yes, I pushed my personal wheel barrow on the sacred aspects of art, peace and the environment.

And to underscore the importance of educating our children on being active in social and environmental justice campaigns, half an hour after the school kids left, two tourists from Israel came to see the Peace Garden and walk the Peace Path. In conversation with the woman, she told me that in Jerusalem she would go to the military check points to pass out information to the Palestinians on their legal rights as well as do a "citizen's watch" on the behaviour of the soldiers. She and her partner agreed with me that governments (Australia and America included) seemed incapable of moving beyond the pattern of using violence to try and stop violence. Has it ever worked? Around three o'clock two American sisters from Pennsylvania, one an English major just out of university and the other about to complete her chemistry degree, cruised on in just a few minutes ahead of four senior citizens from New South Wales. Not everyday is this busy with people who have found their way to Windgrove to witness what is happening here. By the time I went for my surf at 6:30, I had spoken to four separate groups totalling 22 kids and ten adults. As the school bus pulled away at lunch time and as each of the Hertz rental cars left later in the day, I felt grateful each time to have been given the opportunity to share with these young, older and oldest hearts and minds some of the Windgrove philosophy on art, peace and right livelihood. Their smiles and waving good-byes were some indication that the legacy unfolding here was being appreciated.

Ten in the morning and already the forty red toes of the band, Four Leaf Clovis, have been stamping a beat for an hour's worth of ol'timey music. What a treat for myself and Windgrove to have the banjo, violin and guitars of Sherri, Sally and the two Kates singing up the land, the house and all our moods. And all the way from Alaska! About as far north as one can get from here.

Last night I went to bed while these gals were still playing. Such a pleasant feeling to drift off to sleep with music drifting into my consciousness and then quickly into my unconscious, dream state. Whoever thinks that living at Windgrove means having a lonely, reclusive life doesn't know the half of it. My fingers are tapping to the music even as I type this story into the computer. The coffee is perking on the stove. And we're all feeling real good. The joy is palpable. Sorry about the shortness of today's web blog, but the women and music are beckoning.

“He saw nothing. The country was thick with sacred stories more ancient than the ones he carried in his sweat-slippery Bible. He did not even imagine their presence. Some of these stories were as small as the transparent anthropoids that lived in the puddles beneath the river casuarinas. These stories were like fleas, thrip, so tiny that they might inhabit a place (inside the ears of the seeds of grass) he would later walk across without even seeing.”

This is author Peter Carey’s rather harsh description of the European/Christian attitude to the Australian landscape as found in his novel, “Oscar & Lucinda”. An attitude that still lingers today as we continue to desecrate both our cultural and natural environments by remaining blind to the damage caused by an elitist world view that denies the sacredness of all humans and of all the earth.

But.... and here is the good news.... it is an attitude being constantly challenged and eroded by more and more people from all walks of life: scientists, Christian clergy, Buddhist monks, corporate heads and a smattering of politicians. Just recently, there was an Earth Liturgy held in an area of ancient Tasmanian old growth forest and one speaker, a Catholic priest, said: “God is Green”.

Within Australia, there is an important reconciliation taking place between blacks and whites.
As well, heeding one of the definitions of reconciliation as “the purification or restoration to sacred uses after desecration or pollution”, there is also another reconciliation happening between the people and the landscape.

The three women above, each in their own small way, are doing what they can to change our dominate western behavioural pattern from one of arrogance to one of accommodating both forms of reconciliation.

Sally, the youngest, keenly aware of the health implications that arise when the environment is not treated reverently, is on her way to Kenya as a volunteer doctor in the Medicine sans Frontier organisation. She will both help the Kenyans with her expertise and learn from their stories a different knowledge.

Marie, working with Chinese business people, knows how important a respectful listening to the world’s cultural stories can be in the making and fostering of a sustainable global peace. She carries a hugh, laughing optimism that the human heart is inherently good and will prevail.

Carolyn, befriended by aboriginal elders, is working passionately to find a way for all the people of Australia to come together, simultaneously across the nation, and affect a great healing by simply singing up the land in unison with one great collective voice.

As they blessed Windgrove with their presence over the weekend, may I now offer a blessing to each of them on their continuing journeys.

Yesterday, late in the afternoon, a car drove into Windgrove. A couple in their late forties got out and I could immediately tell from their clothes that here was money. Also, a little out of place, as though they had just come from an opening night at the Sydney Opera House. Not quite suitable for a comfortable walk around Windgrove.

"Hi. We were told we had to see your place. We live at Whale Beach." (For readers who don't know, Whale Beach is an up market, trendy location north of Sydney.)

As they got ready to go on their walk (in the fading light, cold and gray), he reached into his pocket, pulled out a key ring, pressed a button and the car lights came on, signalling that all four doors and the boot/trunk had been locked.

Being that they had just come up my two kilometre driveway and would not have seen another human being; being that they had chosen to come to view the "Peace" Garden, and the "Peace" Fire and do the "Peace" Walk; and, being that I am obviously here all alone, his locking the car didn't seem to exhibit much trust in either me, the founder and director of the Windgrove Peace Centre, or the inherent "safeness" that powerfully resides in this landscape.

"Well," I said, "I find it really interesting that you feel you have to lock your car."

"Habit," he said. "There's nothing in the car. You can steal whatever you want." But, he still kept it locked.

They started off on their walk. Within fifteen minutes they had returned, got into their car and drove off. Obviously, there wasn't much here to interest them. It would have all been just a blur of little significance.

To me, their life choices had not prepared them to see the depth and beauty and power of what lies at the heart of Windgrove. An ontology of fear and mistrust not only "locks" doors, it closes the door on enriching experiences. Rather than opening a door to a new unfolding and understanding of life, one is kept in a tiny closet of tiny experiences.

My intention is not to pick on this one couple from Sydney, because the above locking of a car has happened more than once. What I have noticed, though, is that the more material wealth a person possesses, the more keys they carry to weigh down.

What is needed to fully partake in the offerings of Windgrove is an ontology of trust; a willingness to abandon and leave behind one's defenses and open up one's heart to the vulnerability of one's precious, and all too brief, life.
I am more than happy to give my time to anyone when they come to Windgrove because Windgrove's purpose is to serve in helping to change our collective behaviour and attitude towards ourselves, each other and the larger living world. I will go out of my way to give time to strangers and the unexpected guest.

My minimum and only request is that people who visit not lock their car doors.

Tim and Ros Bowden came through Windgrove today after having seen it on an SBS Global Village television documentary. Australians might remember Tim as the ABC tv presenter of Back Chat as well as the author of two travel books "Penelope Goes West" and "Penelope Bungles to Broome".

Well, Penelope (the 4X4) brought them here to discuss my thinking behind memorials; specifically the Peace Garden (see my web site http://www.windgrove.com) for a possible inclusion in a future book about their travels in Tasmania.

Here's a scoop: Tim's autobiography "Spooling Through -- an Irreverent Memoir" will be published this April 4.

Upon leaving, Tim paid the nicest compliment. He said, "The place: your house, the land, the Peace Garden, your art; everything just feels right."

What more could one want?

What do these people have in common with the Peace Fire?

Ryan Phelan is the CEO of the All Species Foundation.
Stewart Brand is president of The Long Now Foundation.

Both understand the importance of fostering peace in the environment and grasping and holding within our present consciousness hugh time spans covering centuries if humans are to survive into the next millennium.

The intention of the Peace Fire is for it to stay lighted for six hundred years. Compared to Stewart Brand's 10,000 year Millennium Clock, this is small cookies. However, in today's fast paced planning schemes, thinking ahead more than ten years is considered brave. Yet, it is imperative that our governments and corporations start considering how their actions will affect, at least, the seventh generation.

One of the dedications of the Peace Fire is to create a peace between humanity and the rest of the living world. Whether the ten million to thirty million species that Ryan Phelan is attempting to catalogue remain alive or become extlinct will play a big factor in how humans will fare.

So, toss another log on the fire and let's all pray for Peace. Peace in the forests, peace in Iraq, peace in the oceans, peace in the skies, peace everywhere.

Generally, when people visit Windgrove they usually arrive by car, truck, bus or walk up from the beach, although I have had the occassional horse rider. Two days ago, however, a Tasmanian emergency helicopter came in real low and circled the property three times. When they approached the Peace Garden they slowed rlght down, almost to a hover, then respectfully, almost quietly, flew on.

It intrigues me to think about what they thought they were seeing. Was the spiral poking up out of its stone well part of Australia's latest missle defense shield? And what was the smoking "tin can" over by the Peace Fire hiding?

The helicopter was in the area because of a bush fire that had been burning in the hills behind Nubeena (about five miles from Windgrove) for several days. My hope is that the crew flew around the Peace Garden and offered up prayers for an end to the fire and the drought gripping this area, an end to the fire bombing of clearfelled old growth forests by Forestry Tasmania, and, an end to the fire power of all weapons of every country.

Author Bill Bryson (Sunburned Country, A Walk in the Woods) spent an afternoon here at Windgrove gathering information for an upcoming National Geographic article on Tasmania. Yes, he was impressed with the Peace Garden and Peace Fire and landscape, but I spent most of my time making sure that he fully understood the seriousness of the damage being done to Tasmania by the collusion between the Labor government, Forestry Tasmania and Gunns. I did not paint a pretty picture.

When Bill asked me what I thought of the premier of Tasmania, Jim Bacon, I responded: "A politician willing to squander the wealth of the state's natural assests simply because he has neither the intellect nor wisdom to recognize the potential that is uniquely Tasmania. He gives lip service to the arts, eco tourism, inclusive government and the Tasmanian Together process, but only because some spin doctor has told him this would be good for his image. The tragedy for the people of Tasmania is that he lacks any depth of understanding of what he is ruining."

Tasmania's government has made its corporatised forestry department, Forestry Tasmania, exempt from the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conversation Act, the Threatened Species Act, the Freedom of Information Act, and our state's own Resource Management and Planning System. Is this not corrupt or what? And Tasmania is the only state that sets out to poison its own native animals. "Clean and green?"

On Forestry Tasmania, I said that under the directorship of Evon Rolley, the old growth rain forests have been clearfelled and destroyed with a demonic enthusiam equal only to the immorality of the fire bombing of Dresden. In their drive to make Tasmania the toilet paper center of the world, they are willing to sacrifice, not only the hundreds of thousands of animals and plant species living in the diverse habitate of our old growth forests, but also the thousands of employment opportunities related to boat building, honey production, the furniture industry, the arts, true eco-tourism, organic farming, scientific research and land management. If this is supposely world's best practice, it doesn't say much for the world.

On Gunns, I said that their immense profits are only because of the insistance of the government to turn a blind eye to the ecological and economic damage being done to our natural heritage. The money being paid out to the share holders and the board of directors comes from the government and Forestry Tasmania handing over the keys to the bank vaults and walking away from their responsibility to protect, preserve and promote this increasingly tarnished golden island.

Bill Bryson loved his visit to Windgrove.