Life on the Edge

Nine years ago I gave a speech at the Australian national Students and Sustainability Conference and my opening remarks were:

As you sit here now, charged in the belief that you can help sustain this world through your environmental activism, I want to ask you: What do you have in your personal belief systems that will guide you through the rest of your twenties, your thirties, forties and beyond? Life is easy, when it’s sunny. How will you pick yourself up, though, when the storms of life ravage your heart? Like the spider who daily mends her web, how will you mend your wounds? Eventually, your friends will move on, your lover will vanish, technology will make your job redundant, and you will be left with nothing but your fragile ego self to carry you forward. Can you do it? Can you do it alone? Can you do it without embodying the belief that the sustainability of self is intimately linked to a sacred Earth?

On Tuesday of this week, Allana Beltram—the Weld Angel in the above photo—came to Windgrove to walk the Peace Path and sit by the Peace Fire in meditation to seek inspiration, strength, hope and a way through some personally troubling times. It was bad enough when the Tasmania Police and Forestry Tasmania sued her this past month for her artistic civil disobedience action to protect the Weld Forest by sitting in a tripod dressed up as an angel. But this week she also found out that her partner, environmental activist Ben Morrow (who also happens to be one of the Gunns 20 people being sued), has been diagnosed with cancer. Thirty three year old Ben spent nearly a year in the threatened forests of Tasmania’s Styx Valley at the Global Rescue Station helping to raise awareness of the plight of Tasmania’s ancient forests.

So how will Allana deal with this double whammy? How will Ben heal himself? The questions I asked nine years ago still resonate for me because these eco-warriors who are there on the front line need to remain with us in this world in ways that are physically, emotionally and spiritually vigourous.

At the conference I ended the speech with: “In thirty years’ time, I want all of you back here for another conference, still active in the environment movement, still compassionate about the Earth, still in love with life, still living a life of integrity, courage, compassion and humour. Do what is necessary now to make sure you’ll be here in the year 2028. It will come.

Become one with nature. Embody this truth and it will sustain you. Even in your darkest hour, you are not alone. There is a great support network out there. Allow it to open you up to release the great shout of joy that resides in you and that has been waiting for years to come out.”

Beyond the support network of the natural world that I referred to in the conference speech, there is also the human support network. Allana and Ben need our help to both defend their separate court cases as well as to have money to give Ben the opportunity to seek specialist treatment. We need them.

Checks can be sent to:

The Ben Morrow Fund
C/O The Wilderness Society
130 Davey St,
Hobart Tas. 7000
Australia

Deer live deep in the forest
surviving on water and grass
stretching out under trees to sleep
how wonderful having no cares
but tie them up in a fancy hall
and give them the richest of foods
they won’t eat a bite all day
and soon their loveliness fades
-- Chinese poet Han Shan c. 800 AD --

It might appear strange to couple the above poem and photo together, but there are two comparisons to be found: appropriate giving and the importance of nature on our emotional, physical and spiritual health.

The best gift we can give anyone, including ourselves, is a natural world left vibrant and healthy for all ages and all species. Whatever is lovely in our life fades a bit each time the earth’s natural heritage is diminished. Nothing can make up for this loss. No fancy home, no gourmet meals, no nothing. We, like the deer, do best in wild nature. Take us away from nature and we slowly, imperceptibly fade away, shopping mall by shopping mall.

Baby Tama is having a New Zealand flowering Pahutakawa planted in her honour with the baby’s placenta placed first in the hole. The little girl standing, Arora, had a similar tree planted just behind this one three years ago. These children are directly bearing witness to the supreme importance of making a physical and spiritual connection to the living earth.

Along with each tree’s special birth significance, the parents Janine and Hape wanted to plant these trees here at Windgrove because, for them, the land itself is special. And why is it so special? I strongly suspect that it is the many people over the years who have contributed in so many ways that have made Windgrove what it is today. The $1,000 that went into the fencing of last week’s blog was donation money from people in America, Australia and Korea. Other people have given of their time to help build gardens and maintain the grounds. Today, a visiting person left behind a candle and three of her chooks’ eggs. Delicious.

A greedy man who piles up wealth
is like an owl who loves her chicks
the chicks grow up and eat their mother
wealth eventually swallows its owner
spread it around and blessings grow
hoard it and disaster arises
no wealth no disaster
flap your wings in the blue
Han Shan (known as Cold Mountain)

Footnote to poem. The belief that owl chicks eat their mother is an ancient myth in China.

Today’s blog has been written by Sally Horne, Windgrove artist-in-residence from December till the end of February.

My quiet activism: Chinese Medicine and mandalas as a means of creating harmony.

We learn to speak a language. And then within that language many of us, perhaps on a spiritual journey or a journey of seeking meaning and a deeper sense of connection, try to find a language that better articulates and deepens our experience of communication about the world and its inner workings. I am learning the language of Traditional Chinese Medicine. It is all together an art, a science and a spiritual path, and likewise painting mandalas is an art, science and spiritual pathway. Both are intricately intertwined in my life. In many ways learning the language of Chinese Medicine is enabling me more and more to comprehend and to translate the silent language of mandalas and their significance in the healing arts.

As the world of natural therapies grows, the concept of wholistic medicine—the consideration and treatment of healing of a disharmony on physical, mental and spiritual levels—has become well known. It is the deeper aspects of medicine, disharmony of the psycho-emotional and spiritual planes that truly interest me. This is where, I believe, most of our problems reside and where our destructive relationship with the world stems from. Part of what attracts me so much to Chinese Medicine and what I connect with through mandala painting is the grounding in interconnectedness and interdependence that both offer. Chinese medicine communicates a complex system of interactions that does not begin or end with self. Likewise the journey of painting a mandala links into the web that moves beyond self. Both aim to deconstruct notions of self and separation from other through a realigning of the subtlest levels of one’s energetic web of interactions.
 
Chinese medicine speaks of the five aspects of spirit as the energetics that give life to form. These spirit aspects connect with the primordial (Tao, connective unconscious, Buddha nature) and have their grounding in the physical. Being closest to the primordial they are the storehouse of our own personal destiny/pathway and act us guides or conduits of our greater plan. This is expressed in an inspiring interpretation of an ancient Chinese text called Rooted in Spirit: the Heart of Chinese Medicine. The author states that the most significant part of needling when acupuncturing is ensuring that there is a “rooting in the spirits”. By this he means accessing the spirit level of medicine. Loss of communication with oneself leads to loss of communication with others and one’s environment. A closer communication with our spirits leads to a richer, more meaningful, more connected and peace-centered life.

 

So what exactly are mandalas? To me they are visual representations of earthly/heavenly vibrations. They are energetic mappings of the silent underlying rhythms within self and beyond self.

The Process of painting mandalas:
It all begins with an empty circle. This is the beginning of all the mandalas. Sometimes it remains an integral part of the painting, sometimes it loses visibility, but it is ever-present in the foundation.

The empty circle is most significant in that it is a sacred circle that gives birth to intention and endless potential. This sacred circle provides the space for the initial image that comes to me most often during meditation. This image is the key that unlocks the artwork; it is the nucleus from which the layers of imagery unfold. And from there, I disappear into another world of colour, image and vibration. Each layer emerges from the previous and gradually the mandala sprouts into life, fruition and maturation.

The significance of the journey is darkly visible along the way, insight comes in little bursts yet clarity comes in strongly towards the end. Along the way I notice my often tumultuous thoughts and emotions that arise and know that as I paint I am both the receiver and creator of healing vibrations. The act of creating also embodies re-creation, the re-creation of self. I evolve as the mandala evolves. And in turn, as interdependence dictates, this influences the evolution of the earth in its small yet significant way.
 

The Windgrove paintings:
 
The trilogy of paintings that I completed at Windgrove represent a single journey. The only initial intention was that they facilitate in some way the resurrection of a fragmented self, of darning my frayed edges. And that harmonising of self would link into the web of interconnectedness and have a positive influence on the frayed edges and fragmentation of the world.

Initially, I began with two paintings: The Moving Away and The Return. These I worked on simultaneously, all the while dealing with the clashing energetics of the two paintings.
 
#1. The Moving Away: yang in nature, hot, expansive and outward moving; vivid, hard-edged and angular, robust and powerful.
 
#2. The Return: yin in nature, inward and downward spiralling; cooling, shadowy, reflective, circular, soft and quietly powerful.
 
On a personal level the tale is apparent, two opposing forces that were having trouble integrating. Going Away came out strong and with ease while The Return was a personal battle. (Perhaps a struggle to manifest my inner vision, a preference to hold it quietly inside, a fear of displaying my quiet vulnerable feminine side on canvas or fear of expressing the softer emotions.)
 
My struggles are your struggles are the world’s struggles.
 
We see these two opposing energetics at the foundation of Chinese Medicine; the interplay of yin and yang. In the deeper energetics of ourselves, within our yin aspect, we hold our arcane visions, our innate selves, our true pathways. It is the outward and upward moving yang that lifts the energies stored in the yin crevices of our being up and out into the world. Yin is storage, yang is action. In the perfect harmonious interaction of these two opposing forces are the holding and manifestation of the individual and the greater vision. It is hard for me to believe that the greater plan would be one of discord and worldly destruction. The seeds of perfect harmony must be within each of us.
 
#3. The Axis: grounding, unity, centering, interconnection.
 
The Axis represents the meeting point of two fundamental interdependent forces. It aims to facilitate and strengthen the return to a relative state of harmony so that spiritual growth and positive reconnection with all other beings and our environment may flourish.
 
It is difficult to articulate and summarise what my paintings are about because they seem to sit between contradictions. They are both simple and complex. They represent the fragment “and” the whole. They are the mending of self, the mending of other.

They are about nothing and, yet, everything.   
 
 

In order to help fund the Windgrove artist-in-residence program, Sally Horne has kindly agreed to put these three oil paintings up for sale with a third of the sale price of each painting ($1,500) going to the residency program.

Price each: Aus$ 4,500. 
Price includes all taxes, packaging and air freight.

Size: 2ft 6in square / 760mm square

Please contact me for further details:

Up to date info:  the painting “Axis” has been sold.

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

As a boy, I was told: "It is better to give than to receive". This, hopefully, was to move my young, egocentric, acquisitive behavioural patterns into a more generous and compassionate way of being. The hidden message, though, in "better to give, than receive" is that it sets up receiving as the inferior of giving. And, with all the other complex shadows that hide within one's psyche, this can compound into a feeling that something is not quite right in the taking. Might it be more instructive to say: "Giving and receiving are both acts of love". And that each should be practised with copious amounts of attention.

The above small sculpture, "Five Ancestral Stones", is being donated to an art auction to raise money for the Tasmanian Greens. I first carved it last September and then left it outside to weather for eight months before spending another week reworking it. All up, a good two weeks of patient effort. Here is one small example of expressing a deep appreciation to a political party that represents such inspired integrity and hope for the earth and humanity.

The white truck parked behind my friend, Mische Marion, has served me well, but with 350,000 kilometres, is nearing retirement and I have only been driving it because I do not have the means to get a better vehicle. In front of Mische, however, all grey and beautiful like the Ancestral Stones, is the Subaru that she has recently given to me out of her love for Windgrove and its visions for peace. A great gift. And, I love receiving it. This reciprocal give and take; these circular dances of exchange; this breathing in and out of beautiful acts...... ....... are they not wondrous?

Our town planner has just quit in disgust because nearly every recommendation she has made to the local council on appropriate development has been overturned. Our state government is secretly and openly giving away land zoned "coastal conservation" or within national parks over to developers. Instead of adequately funding our public hospitals, they have just given three million dollars to private developers to build a motor car raceway. Our federal government has taken away all research money into renewable energy; instead, purchasing four hundred million dollars worth of 15 year old used tanks from America (about 50). Shall I examine the global picture? So....... from whence comes the motivation to keep plugging away at the maintenance and further creation of the Windgrove Peace Centre; choosing/forced to live in basic poverty while continually putting every dollar earned or donated into its establishment? Why don't I just sell this valuable beach front property, take the cash and enjoy a leisurely retirement befitting a person at the head of the "baby boomers" (born 1946)? And don't think I haven't thought about it. In many ways, it would take a lot of the emotional and physical pressure off of me; allowing an opportunity to just sit quietly somewhere and carve, do yoga retreats and sip cafe lattes in town squares while perfecting my "inner being". Possibly another stint in the Peace Corps like I did in 1969/1970 in Korea. The answer is to be found in: "the potential of service to the earth and humanity". If I can hang in here long enough; if Windgrove can get firmly established as a refuge for ecology and art, as a place of dialogue with nature on community, peace and healing..... then all the present trauma associated with an empty stomach and worn out clothes will seem insignificant. I am more than willing to dig ditches for three months to install a water system, not for my simple needs, but for the Centre's future needs. But I can only do so much and I do tire. The Peace Fire is important. The Peace Garden is important. The Peace Path is important. The Refugee-in-Residence program is important. And why? Because of our children.

Like Heather Rose and Sophie, pictured above. They, and three other children were at Windgrove this past weekend and all partook in the spirit that resides here. Kate, Brook and Sophie sat around the Peace Fire on Saturday night and experienced a view of the world that can counter the images they have seen of war prisoners. They heard adults talking of peace not hatred. They felt the warmth of an eternal flame dedicated to world peace and attended to daily for over two years. On Sunday, in the nurturing atmosphere of Windgrove, Heather Rose constructed this small altar for "earth's beauty". I can cry when I see such hopeful examples of how we might exist in this world if the conditions were right for their blossoming. May these children grow into adulthood full compassion and love for all. May today's adults do all they can to instil a sense of awe, sacredness, wonderment and beauty into the hearts of every child upon this planet. And so I plug on. Any help received will be gratefully appreciated.

Finally, the first tender shoots of grass are poking through the top soil. The past three weeks have been arduous, yet fulfilling, and the placement and landscaping of all the guardian rocks at the entrance to the house is now complete. This could not have been done without the help of my "unexpected guest", Daniel, who only left two days ago after spending three weeks here. With all the moving of stones and soil, Daniel with his younger body came through okay; I needed to go into Hobart last week to have my extremely sore legs massaged in order to continue working. And yesterday, Windgrove was gifted with a Peace Pole from The Byakko Shinko Kai, an international organisation (based in Japan) dedicated to world peace and raising the consciousness of everyone and every living being on earth. Its activities are rooted in the universal prayer for world peace "May Peace Prevail on Earth" as seen in English and kanji on four sides of the pole. Especially interesting to me are their Mandalas and their affirmations of gratitude to Nature where people are encouraged to express daily their deep appreciation to the earth, the oceans, the mountains, the air, rocks, animals, plants, and everything else in nature. More can be found on their web site: http://www.byakko.or.jp/en/ Now, if I can only find some way of keeping the wallabies from eating all the new grass before it has time to establish itself.

Since first moving the Peace Bus onto the property, Windgrove, in 1992, I have planted one tree for every day that I have lived here. Each year the accumulated debt is accounted for in the month of September when the winter rains have softened the soil and the moist earth takes in the young trees more easily. With this year being the eleventh year completed, the total should have risen to 4,015 trees. I say "should have" because the expenses ($3,500) associated with organising the Parliament House Vigil last month wiped out the remaining credit on my credit card. With no money currently in the bank and no way to charge seedling she-oaks and blackwoods on plastic, I have been hard on myself these past few weeks as I ponder whether or not I did the right thing in financing a vigil to stop the cutting down of Tasmania's old growth forests instead of putting money into planting this year's trees here at Windgrove. Once Pastor Bob's bench arrives in America the remaining money owed will simply go to paying off the cash advance for the vigil's advertisements in the newspaper and elsewhere. Having taken a vow of simple living, I don't mind not having a closet of fashionable clothes and have learned to coddle a 16 year old truck with slack steering, but I do mind that the hill behind me is remaining barren simply because of a lack of money. Let me quote again from David James Duncan's book "My Story as told by Water": "What is a modern-day spirit offering? I'd say that now, as ever, it is anything we truly value. Our energy, our focus, the hours of our days. Anything we respect so much that, as we pour it out on the finned, feathered, and four-legged peoples' behalf, we kind of hate to see it go. Maybe single-malt scotches from the literalists among us. Prayers and mantras from the mystics. Money, time, and trouble from the capitalists and activists.... The big blockade to change is lack of passion. And the birth-house of passion is the heart. A spirit offering, then, is anything we can offer with a whole heart -- any song, dance, phone call, plea, letter, insight, gift, or prayer that helps determine the way we, and other humans, continue to create our world, rivers, hills, and forests." So, dear readers, offer up your version of a spirit offering to Windgrove so that the healing of this particular land can continue. Prayers of abundance are definitely welcomed. As well, slip ten dollars or anything else into an envelope and mail to: Windgrove Centre, Roaring Beach, Nubeena, Tasmania 7184, Australia. I'm reaching out for help. We all need the trees.