Life on the Edge

What you're looking at is what I had to look at before heading into the water for day 148 of my six month ritual of swimming at Roaring Beach everyday. With such a strong wind and squalls of rain blowing in, it was hard to take a decent photo, but I hope you get some idea of the mood of the ocean. Yes, somedays are better than others. And, this was one of them. To quote Thoreau: "In wildness is the preservation of the world". Today could not have been wilder with hugh surf pounding into the shore and gale force winds hammering anything exposed out of the water. Odd thing is that I'm finding this sort of day not as dangerous as less wild days because the surf rolling in is so big that it is almost impossible to get past about the forth or fifth break. One just gets pushed back into shore. The rips carry me out just so far before a six foot wall of white foam takes me in the opposite direction. Exhilerating is too soft a word to describe the emotion that sweeps over the person out in this water. Funny that I'm always alone. I don't know about preserving the world, but I do know that after today's swim my sanity has been preserved for a few more days. So, come at me again Bush, Blair and Howard with your depressing, stupid ideas of war. I'm feeling more peaceful than ever and more willing than ever to keep on marching for peace.

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.

Twelve years ago today on 25 February 2001, the house that I had designed and helped build burned to the ground in an arson lit bushfire with a total loss of everything; and I mean everything. One of the first friends on the scene was Robyn Eckersley (pictured in the background waving) who, along with two other friends, Lorne Kriwoken and Nel Smit, enclosed me with hugs and tears, joyful that I did not go up in smoke along with the house. Robyn's partner, Peter Christoff, stands beside a small grove of she-oaks that were planted out in 1992 after I purchased Windgrove with the insurance money. So far 3,600 trees have been put across the land. Instead of lamenting my loss back in 1991, today I celebrated the growing beauty of these new trees with a walking recitation of the following (slightly altered) poem from an unknown author: "Where the morning sees the shadows Of the she-oak grove, there was nothing eleven years ago. Where the dry wind sowed the salted cliff top We brought water, planted seedlings, now the she-oaks grow."

Julie-Anne is the second person to become a resident Windgrove refugee; a program that enables professional people a chance to be nutured at Windgrove for a period of two weeks to two months while they focus their attention on the healing of our human connection to this earth.

Julie-Anne Lacko can be seen sitting on the stairs to the “penthouse deck” above the Peace bus preparing a conference/workshop outline about the Australian coal industry. If we acknowledge that our society's reliance on coal is not going to disappear overnight, the question we might ask is how can we make the coal industry as sustainable as possible? The conference Julie is helping to organize will be looking at minimising the social impact of mining and the environmental effects of mining and processing coal which is used to make electricity and  steel. A big task.

I'm taking a short break from my studio work to send out this blog to express my thanks for being part of an upcoming exhibition in Hobart called Future Perfect. When I go to bed at night my fingers go numb and my back and neck hurt from the awkward contortions my body has to get into in order to carve, but I fall asleep with a smile and a deep sense of satisfaction that what we are doing as a group is vitally important for the arts in Tasmania, for Tasmania's future, and in no small way, for peace in our forests. Personally speaking, I like what I see emerging from my studio and this would never have happened if I had not been asked to collaborate with Barbie Kjar and Heather Rose. Just the simple task of talking through various options with these two artists opened my mind to new possibilities of work that most likely would have remained hidden from me. For this I am thankful. But what I am most thankful for is the opportunity we artists have been given to express our moral, spiritual and political beliefs about the direction Tasmania can take into its future. This has excited me from the beginning and I have felt better about participating in this one exhibition than any exhibition in my life, group or solo. My sell out show in Philadelphia means what it says: I sold out. I sold out to the wealthy and to a system that sees art only as decoration, status, a collectors item. Any depth of meaning was lost behind the "name" of the artist and collector. I took my money and went back into my comfortable American life of denial to create only more objects of desire. In preparing for Future Perfect, I have been buoyed by the heart swelling of intention that what we are presenting to the public will be powerfully beautiful. But beautiful because our groups' overriding concern about the future vibrancy and quality of life on this wondrous island will make it so. I, myself, have been partly driven to do good just to refute the notion that those artists who oppose Forestry Tasmania as a sponsor of the 1080 on the Island festival are nothing more than a "motley bunch of greenies with no standing outside of Tasmania". Most importantly, though, I have been inspired to work long hours for the simple fact that I am proud to be one of the members of a coalition of visual artists and writers who love their island and who are willing to devote their energies and talents to help direct the public towards a deeply imaginative vision for this state. The arts cannot serve a more noble purpose.

All Hearts Day. A time to express one's love to another. A time to affirm one's desire to be wholly present in the company of the adored. A time to linger in the sensuous meshing of two hearts pressing into one. With feet bare upon the sand, I slowly walked Roaring Beach this morning. I massaged, was massaged, and a tingling earthly eroticism moved through me. "What a privledge" I thought. "What a stunning blessing it is to wake up each morning to such changing beauty; to such deep beauty. Oh, how I will miss you!" Yes, how I will miss you. When I die, because of so many days of requited love, I will do so happily and will contentedly fall into the waiting arms of my beloved. Yet, when my spirt joins the ancestral realm and my body of bones and ash is scattered along this beach and the hills of Windgrove, I will miss the immersion of the human, Peter, into this earth's body. I will miss the tasty salt of my beloved in my mouth; the swelling wave moving under my belly; the pungent fragrance of her being in my nostrils. Where water meets sky and where flesh touches spirit, this is where I will long to be. This is living; this is life. This I will miss. Thank you earth. Thank you for birthing me. Thank you for giving me this chance to act out a precious and wild life. Thank you for loving me; thank you for allowing me to love.

I spent most of today, Sunday, in my bare earth studio sculpting a small altar piece for a single stone. In a few weeks I will show a photo of the finished piece and an explanation of what it is about. However, what I want to share now is a poem that came to mind while I was carving. And to thank Mr. Lax, who, forty five years ago in the sixth grade, inspired in me an awe for learning. Purple by Alexis Rotella In the first grade Mrs. Lohr said my purple teepee wasn't realistic enough, that purple was no color for a tent, that purple was a color for people who died, that my drawing wasn't good enough to hang with the others. I walked back to my seat counting the swish swish swishes of my baggy corduroy trousers. With a black crayon night fall came to my purple tent in the middle of an afternoon. In second grade Mr. Barta said draw anything; he didn't care what. I left my paper blank and when he came around to my desk my heart beat like a tom tom. He touched my head with his big hand and in a soft voice said the snowfall how clean and white and beautiful.

I went to my open air studio early this morning to continue carving a sculpture for an upcoming exhibition, but the mood of the flies (because of an impending rain) was so bad, their continual harassment of my face drove me back into the safety of the house. This turned out to be a good thing as two friends were in the meditation space softly singing and making my being inside quite enjoyable. Krista Bernard (with guitar) has recently completed a solo, four year bicycle journey from Indonesia to Egypt. Her intent was to travel inwardly as she moved through her outward experiences and changing landscapes. Her "Bi" or double travels are worthy of publication. Any publishers out there? Katie "Ginko" Stackhouse (on the floor making garments) is a legal guardian of Windgrove's future and visits often to replenish her soul. An excitable spokesperson for the earth, her youthful vitality and artistic talents (music, printmaking, cake baking and dance) always enliven and contribute to the healing atmosphere of this place.