Life on the Edge

I was out on the southern cliff top recently checking on the trees planted there when I saw a spider’s web stretched between several bamboo stakes. How the spider ever got to the top of each stake to pull tight a single strand of web to make things all taut and ready to catch flies, is hard to fathom. A bit of imaginative engineering skill, for sure.

I had also been out on the western cliff top checking out the lone surfer who waited and waited for his perfect wave to come in.

All the while, I had been reflecting on the cruise ship that came past these same cliffs last week (written up in the previous blog) and I had been tossing around in my head the phrase: “When my ship comes in”. 

Seeing the spider and surfer made two things apparent. One, is that a bit of skill and work is first necessary so that when one’s ship does come in (or the fly or towering wave) things are in place and skills honed to handle and take full advantage of the situation. How many people are caught with their pants down, so to speak, when opportunity comes calling? They just aren’t skilled enough. They haven’t prepared. They haven’t done the necessary hard slog.

The other vital component necessary is patience. No one will ever know when their ship will come sailing by. Maybe today, maybe next year, maybe in ten years time. But it will. If we give up out of lack of patience, turn our back on the hope of anything good coming our way, then sure as anything, this is when opportunity will come knocking. But then, we won’t be there. We’ll have left.

Experience has taught me over the years that everyone has had good fortune smile down on them in one fashion or another. Whether any of us have been prepared enough and waited patiently long enough to capitalise on this good fortune, well, that’s either the lucky or the unlucky part of the story of our lives.

My little red wheelbarrow. Over the past several years I have used it to haul many things. Needless to say, it has lightened my load considerably.

On Monday, however, as I was cleaning the ashes out of the pit containing the Peace Fire, an ember fell next to the wheelbarrow’s tire and “pshsssss” the tire blew. Try as I might to continue to use the wheelbarrow (to finish the job at hand), it couldn’t be done. The barrow held the ash, I held the barrow, but the little wheel was flat, thereby, throwing the whole operation out the window (so to speak).

It got me thinking. Isn’t a chain only as strong as its weakest link? Doesn’t life itself require all its various components to be well oiled and well maintained to function properly? Neglect any one part and the ability to move from A to B is decidedly more difficult.

The question I want to ask is: How do we move the world towards peaceful coexistence when the spiritual wheel needed to carry us there is flat?  Politicians and world leaders seem to be more “religious” these days, but, gosh, their religion seems debased.

Bush Administration’s “pro-life” stance appears to be limited to the unborn and the brain-dead. Despite being panned by critics everywhere, the Iraqi Horror Picture Show continues its run, as thousands and thousands of born foetuses - ours and theirs—lose their right to life.

As my guru Harry Cohen Baba has said, “Life is like a good deli. Even if something isn’t on the menu, if enough people order it they have to make it.” So what kind of new world order are we ordering up? Do we feed the wolf of fear and buy into the “it’s every man for himself” story? Or do we nourish the wolf of love and evolve into the “we’re all in it together” story?

Release the old story—been there, done that—and speak the new story into the world. Dare to imagine what we could be doing if we weren’t spending so much of our livelihood on weapons of deadlihood. Think about it ... think tanks where they think about something other than tanks. Young people living for their country instead of dying for it. Health and education fully funded, and the Air Force having to run a bake sale so they can buy a new bomber.

I don’t know who actually wrote the above italicised section, but I like it. He/she goes by the name of Swami Beyondananda.

Time for me to patch the tire (tyre, elsewhere).

What is it about stones? Charles Simic tries an answer with this poem: "Go inside a stone That would be my way Let somebody else become a dove Or gnash with a tiger's tooth. I am happy to be a stone. From the outside the stone is a riddle: No one knows how to answer it Yet within, it must be cool and quiet Even though a cow steps on it full weight, Even though a child throws it in a river; The stone sinks, slow, unperturbed To the river bottom Where the fishes come to knock on it And listen. I have seen sparks fly out When two stones are rubbed, So perhaps it is not dark inside after all; Perhaps there is a moon shining From somewhere, as though behind a hill -- Just enough light to make out The strange writings, the star-charts On the inner walls." The stone I am holding in my hand is definitely a beach stone; all shapely rounded by who knows how many hundreds of years of wave action. But it was far from the beach when I came upon it. On Tuesday morning, in light mist, while walking around an area of land just off the Peace Path, an area of land I have never walked on before, there it lay half buried, glinting and shining like some polished jewel; like some dark moon shining. The only way it could have gotten there was for an aboriginal man or woman to have carried it there; possibly even a child. The riddle I ask myself is: "When was the last time this stone was picked up and held?" I close my eyes and allow myself to see a black hand cupping this stone. When it was put down, could the holder foresee the tragedy about to fall?

Looking back at Windgrove from the far end of the beach, a faint circle around 200 feet in diameter begins to emerge on the hillside as the she-oaks outlining its perimeter grow and darken. Aside from its main purpose of being a native grass sanctuary, its symbol as a circle carries much meaning. Today, it reminds me of the earliest use of the word "sin"; to miss the mark. Archers, trying to hit the bull's eye, would receive the mark of "sin" when they missed hitting this one point of perfection with their arrow. Consider this, when they were aiming at the bull's eye, they didn't shoot their arrows in the exact opposite direction (our present idea of sin). They were attempting and "trying their best" to hit perfection. To not be a sinner would be someone who didn't even attempt to shoot at the target, or walk the path of peace, or attempt to live a good and just life. Early tomorrow morning, I will leave Windgrove to walk in the Styx Valley with many other hundreds of concerned Tasmanians to voice our objections to the clearfelling of old growth forests. As a speaker at this forest rally, I will be asking the people gathered the following questions: "Do we have the courage to consistently speak our collective truth with compassion?" "Can we commit ourselves to consistently stand up for the trees, despite the personal suffering it might bring us." "Will we stay firm in our resolve to respect our elders and never let the chain saw silence these forests, the home of many an ancestor. To answer the above in the positive will require being a consistent sinner.

I sit sipping a late morning coffee. Looking out through the shading trees, the blue of sky and sea mingle. I have read just a couple of pages of Pete Hay’s book, Vandiemonian Essays, and am pondering the question he poses (first asked of him by Barry Lopez) of whether or not Tasmania is the custodian of an important truth, one which the entire world will one day need. I came here 18 years ago for just a year but stayed on for the simple reason that I felt Tasmania did offer something; the ensuing years have been an attempt by me to understand what it is. Am I any closer to this understanding? Let me just say this: when the weather is benign like today, the wind soft and the air warm and birds flicker through the green, I can just begin to tease out a faint voice coming through the land. Today I need your ears and heart to help me listen. With the sound of war circling the globe, it is getting noisier and I am growing afraid. With the sound of governments willing the destruction of this earth and of its children, I am afraid the voice that I am only just now beginning to decipher will be lost under a pile of debris of our collective making. Will this truth be lost forever? Or just harder to get at? Will it ebb slowly into silence with each ancient rain forest tree cut down; with each child's death accepted as collateral damage? Or will the voice of the land always be there for us, waiting with generational patience until we are whole enough again to hear its message?