Life on the Edge

Some days there is little joy. I woke up this morning knowing that the only way through the next twenty four hours was to grit my teeth, take a deep breath and push myself out of bed with a steely determination to get the job done. It was not going to be easy as many distractions lay in wait; have lain in wait the previous nine months and been successful in seducing me away from the task at hand. Like this morning, for instance: blue skies, calm wind, wood begging to be carved, birds asking that their song be heard and the ground pleading to be massaged by my feet. But the hour of reckoning was approaching. The knocking; the ever incessant knocking on the door was getting louder and louder. The tax man cometh. And today, I had to give myself over to the arduous task of preparing last year's tax.

My dad was an accountant. And every year he would wait until the last possible day to file our family's income tax. Like father, like son. I, also, avoid doing taxes until the last possible moment as I constantly battle against being forced indoors to organise a box full of bits of paper into meaningful small piles of tax avoidance. Tonight the dining table is the dreaded Tax Table. Where usually one encounters conversation, platters of food, silverware and candles, at this late hour there is just a rising resentment to an Australian government that takes half a billion dollars in tax money to purchase 59 "used" eleven year old Abrams tanks from the US military. Will these tanks be used to round up aborigines in the central desert? Or blast away at the half starved refugee boat people that try to come ashore seeking freedom from the countries they have fled? Where our my guests to fill the vacant chairs and offer me cheer? Is there no one to tell me that the tanks are a mistake and that actually $500,000,000 will be spent on providing clean water to all the refugee camps in the world? Is there anyone out there who can hear me screaming?

As this year ends and a new one begins, let me make a toast to the miracle that is our body and how amazing that it continues to function and keeps us alive to witness the beauty of this world day after day, year after year. I found this glass and its contents in the refrigerator this morning; forgot that I had placed it there Christmas night before going to bed. Looking at it now, as the sun's golden rays refract through the peachy red liquid, it reminds me of what I wrote ten days ago when I quoted Shakespeare's line "... and good in everything". In a gesture of holding up the glass to the sky, I am not so much toasting the elixir within the glass as I am toasting the wondrous miracle of life that this liquid symbolises to me. You see, after falling to sleep on Christmas night, at 2:30 in the morning I was in an ambulance starting out on a two hour ride from Roaring Beach to the public hospital in Hobart. I hadn't intended to go at such an ungodly hour, but I awoke to such severe pain that I had no choice but to telephone triple zero and ask for help. Within twenty minutes the ambulance arrived; a credit to the local volunteers, especially being Christmas night. When I went to bed there was not a hint of pain, only that I had been peeing blood for the previous four hours (hence the glass full in the refrigerator to take to the doctors when convenient). In the end, I simply had passed a kidney stone. Considering I fully expected to be dead, this was great news to hear from the doctor. Today I will walk into the new year with a whole new awareness and appreciation of the mysterious workings of the body and how it heals itself. As I raise the glass to the sky, I won't drink this particular toast, but I'm certain the lemon tree will benefit.

If one were to define “ritual” as a repetitive act carried out with awareness, loving attention to detail and a touch of ceremony, my life could be said to have acquired several rituals. Seemingly non-religious, these common, daily secular acts are so full of devotional habit that they are elevated to a sacred status. Most often, every day begins with a morning walk to the Peace Garden for a quiet, prayerful sit at the Ancestral Midden followed by a walk over to the Peace Fire where I circle to each of the four compass points and welcome in the day by reaching to the sky and voicing a greeting. (In other words, an average sort of ritual for an average sort of monk beginning an average sort of day.) Invariably, this little stretch to the morning sun stirs and awakens within me the pleasant anticipation of returning back to the house for the smell of toast and the pressurised hissing sound of coffee in the expresso maker. My gait picks up considerably, much like a horse returning home, as I sense the second, though no less important, ritual of the day coming on. In fact, at Windgrove, the highest ranking ritual has to be this one, the “Toast/Coffee” ritual; a most favoured (and most flavoured) ritual that borders on the addictive (but is kept out of the ranks of addiction because of the pureness of my light heart). Because of space limitations, I’ll not describe the coffee making portion of this ritual; instead, let’s go straight to the crunchy stuff. Now, when it comes to the making of toast, I rotate the choice of bread to be toasted, having found out that boredom will set in and my enthusiasm for this ritual will suffer if I stick with one type of bread only. Sort of like, when I was living in Moscow it was always helpful in maintaining my sense of the spiritual if I was able to buy at the candle stall upon entering the Russian orthodox church any of several different sizes of candles to light and place at any of several altars dedicated to any of several saints. Therefore, it is imperative to have on hand, either on top of the fridge or in the freezer, “two pound” and “16 hour” loaves of bread from the Hobart baker, Jackman & McRoss, organic “sprouted wheat sourdough” and “nut and raison” breads from the Summer Kitchens bakery and, at least, one loaf of organic rye “grid sourdough” from Healthybake (shown in photo). All five are of a solid consistency, exhibiting a good weighty feel and excellent toasting capabilities. By necessity, since I only have a six burner commercial grade gas stove for cooking (no electricity), the choice of toaster is a stainless steel one of the kind sail boats would have in their kitchen galleys; one where the bread inclines at an angle like a lean-to over the flame and becomes all nice and toasty brown with just a hint of burn. Promite or veggiemite? No way. My toppings are sweet. Honey always on one or two slices and the choicest of jams over a good layering of butter on the others. Four pieces of toast and a giant mug of double expresso all fit onto the one tray and I carry this over to my favourite chair in the corner. Here I sit down and slowly savour every sip of coffee and munching of toast. My mind follows my gaze around the room or through several windows. My reading glasses stay off my face. Only when I have finished eating will I begin the third ritual of the day: reading for half an hour or so before heading out to the studio around 9 AM.

From Neruda's book of poetry "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. XV We the mortals, touch the metals, the wind, the ocean shore, the stones, knowing they will go on, inert or burning, and I was discovering, naming all these things: it was my destiny to love and say goodbye.

Just after one in the morning. Way past my bedtime. But I’ve just come in from a fire vigil for the last four hours and even though I should call it a day, I feel compelled to get this entry in before the ashes get cold. Tonight’s fire was not at the Peace Fire. It was on the Windgrove property but at a location near where I shot the above photo this afternoon. The reason the photo was taken was because my neighbour's dog, Clamp, who had been missing for eight days, was seen at the bottom of the far cliff by a fisherman passing by in a boat. Now, see the wave in the foreground? Nearly a twenty foot breaking swell. See the cliff face? Over a 170 foot vertical drop or 60 meters. Don't ask how the dog got to such an inaccessible spot. How to get the dog? Since the marines are all in Iraq, the dog’s owner, Donna, decided to abseil down herself to rescue the dog from terrorist seals, penguins and bull kelp. Just to get to the top of the cliff face was an arduous half mile walk down a thickly forested hillside. Eventually, from my side of the little bay called The Tea Gardens, I watched as a tiny figure in the distance eased herself off the edge of the cliff and made her way down to the shelf at the base where Clamp was last seen. Confident that she and the other five men on top of the cliff would complete the job, I headed back to the studio for another hour of carving before calling it quits for the day. A couple of hours later after dinner, Donna’s husband, Stan telephones me to say that Clamp is safe at home by the wood heater all curled up and sleeping. The only problem, Stan says, is that Donna is still at the base of the cliff. Seems that it got too dark and dangerous for Donna to safely climb back up; that a Tasmanian state emergency rescue crew was arriving soon from Hobart to get her so that she wouldn’t have to spend the night exposed to freezing strong southerly winds; that because of the noise of the wind and pounding surf, Donna could not have been told that help was coming. Wanting to do something, I figured the best thing I could do was to go back out to the point, build a fire and signal to Donna that I was nearby doing what I could to hold the energy. As my neighbour, she would know that I would be praying for the safety of her and those who would eventually be making their way down to her in the dark. Dragging branches from a spot where they had been placed for soil erosion control, I was able to maintain, despite the stiff wind, a big fire for the next four hours or until I saw the last of the bobbing flickering lights ascend to the top of the hill and disappear into the black night.

Don't ever underestimate the power of suggestion. I woke up yesterday morning thinking about moving up to the faster broadband internet service, however, as I am in a rural district, the only available option is to do this via satellite. A few phone calls later I began to get a picture of the potential costs that would be incurred; the largest being the installation of a satellite dish on the roof of my house. The "thought" occurred to me that maybe I could save some money by building my own satellite dish and throughout the rest of the day I tinkered with this idea. Late in the afternoon, a freak wind blew in out of nowhere and the gods gave me their version of a satellite dish; a heavy, ten foot diameter, cloth, cafe umbrella was lifted out of the table and placed on the roof with a perfect line up for a north facing reception.