Life on the Edge

Last night I tried to write a journal entry using this photo of the ancestral bench's shadow after receiving an email from a friend who had movingly related the dying of his grandmother, "a young catholic girl named Herta with a high Nazi uncle who followed her Jewish boyfriend and his family from Austria to Shanghai China, who gave birth to twins, of which only the stronger, my mum, survived and then emigrated to Australia as a post-war refugee to make a new life." I wanted to talk about the importance of connecting to the stories of the dead (our ancestors) in order to have some form of guidance to lead us to the future. But.... my eyes could not stay open; my mind closed down about the time the last evening light left the sky and the siren call of pillows cushioning my drooping head was impossible to refuse.

This morning, however, looking out over the above landscape with a recharged body and soul, I fell in love with "life" yet again. These two photos, one looking west toward Roaring Beach and the other looking north east out over the Roaring Beach water catchment, convey the crispness and clarity that was present, but not the full sensual quality of this amphitheather. Six cockatoos flew squawking into the valley, four surfers were letting out screams of joy while riding the breaking dawn waves and the subtle fragrance of thousands of coastal flowers hung in the air. A chorus of banjo frogs provided light entertainment. As I held onto the preciousness of this moment, I thought of the the Greenpeace tree sitters in the Styx Valley and my heart flew out to them in a joyous exhalation of praise for their brave work in defending this earth. Catch them on their own weblog: http://weblog.greenpeace.org/tasmania/