Life on the Edge

When I lifted the lid on the Peace Fire this morning, the eternal flame inside had almost gone out overnight and only a thin trail of grey smoke indicated it was not yet dead. Carefully, thoughtfully, quietly, I tended to the fire's needs and made the flame visible once again.

The care of this world is a fragile business. The Peace Fire, environmental awareness or the health of any relationship can so easily be undone. "Fragile" is not too strong a word to describe the tenuous hold that love, peace and the environment have upon people. These are most often, as they say, "off the agenda" when priorities have to be made. It behoves all of us, therefore, to daily do those little actions that collectively keep the flames of hope burning the world over. As seen in the Balkans and elsewhere, peace and love can so easily be dismantled when one's moral foundations are cemented in centuries of fear and mistrust. The same holds true for the environment movement where, because of deep cultural and religious roots embedding fear of the earth into nearly everything, environmental protection can be dismantled as quickly as a spider's web in the wind when fears of job losses or mortgage payments or consumption habits get moved into a zone of uncertainty. Whether it be peace, love, or a healthy world that we long for, none will arrive at our doorstep prepaid or remain for long unless nurtured and carefully looked after.

This past weekend the Green's held an art auction to raise funds for Christine Milne's federal Senate campaign. The sculpture I donated, Five Ancestral Stones (see blog 24 May), sold for $3,100. The total raised from all the donated art was over $55,000. I was pleased, the other artists were pleased, the organisers were pleased, and most pleased was Christine Milne. Compared to the many hundreds of thousands of dollars raised by the major political parties through corporate, union or vested interest groups, $55,000 might seem a paltry amount. Considering the cost of television advertisements, it would probably only buy a few seconds of time. But what it represents to me, and I am sure to all those other supporters of Christine's bid for the Senate, is dignity. Yes.... a simple dignity gained from tending, in whatever way possible, the fragile fires of peace, love and hope for, and upon, this earth.