Saturday

there was a spell of heavy rain in the night – the sound drumming on the roof that wakes you up with absolute relief that all is well with the world . you can feel the land opening to receive , hear the veges brighten and see the branches of the gums drooping with the weight of water  so you wriggle back down glad the job is being done – at last.

and then you  wake again because it has stopped and you were used to the rhythm in your dreams.  the hoped for continuum has not eventuated.

we take what we can. what other options do we have?

in the morning there is another couple of lighter showers and the day continues grey with the  threat or  promise of more to come.

 

I have some friends who are bearing witness. I sat with them today. their sensitive hearts and delicate souls feel bound to listen to the news  – to watch it on the tele  – to keep up to date – to know what is going on. despite the horror and angst   the pain – and here they place a palm on their heart and their eyes glisten with unshed tears  when they retell a story – despite all this  they have to do it. I know what they mean and I can understand a little of this.

 

Living on a  blockade beside brassknocker road at the bottom of  Wandella Mountain  all the way thru a winter and deep into spring summer when the activism failed to uproot the loggers and their chainsaws the forestry and the chipmill from their purpose, I too learnt to bear witness.

I learnt to stand and weep and  sing and pay homage to the tree beings that rolled out as cut logs on trucks. I discovered that  the people that cared for the earth – that loved fern and creek and pinkwood – that adored owl and bandicoot echidna and glider – that respected stringybark black box silver topped ash and wattle  – that honoured worm beetle snake and goanna  – we were in the wrong. we were on the wrong side of the police tape and that made us available to be spat on punched and arrested.

 

this anomoly still intrigues me although I am well aware of the politics of reality as John likes to remind me. even so you must admit it is an odd state of affairs. respect and loving kindness are precisely the attributes our society discourages penalises and punishes.  we live in a world that uses  its undeniable right  by law to carve up the earth  remove our forests  and poison our habitat all for little bits of printed paper.

 

life without television means images and reports of the wanton destruction  of kindness  fresh water and oxygen , families  forests and rivers ,  does not parade past me each evening.

instead it is the chorus of frogs celebrating rain, it is deep rustlings squeaks and scampers, it is the bound thump bound of wallabies. it is possum delivering its tarzan cry snatching up some grapes and galloping off along the iron roof, it is the long whooo  whooooo of the powerful owl hunting that possum on the roof.

there is prey and predator, birth and death in the world of animals birds and fishes.  some spiders devour their mates,  a hive will mass into a tight band and kill their queen when it is time. so many examples of how to behave, what are we to do?

 

I live in an activity  ; a constant regular /irregular/random /chaotic/ ordered / wild /evolving  action  in which all aspects are interwoven interconnected interdependent and totally awesome.

there is little that is newsworthy about this activity  about sightings hatchings nestings foragings  feelings and interspecies communication.

there is nothing newsworthy in diamond dewdrops flashing off feathered wings and cupping a bright green iridescent beetle  in the palm of your hand . What interest in ticks so tiny smaller than a freckle that have managed to clambour onto your body and eat you or leeches that suck between your toes wearing bright orange racing stripes. there is  nothing new about any of this or a wind that lifts leaves off their stems and floats them gently in a spiral pattern down to the ground or worker ants carrying a blade of grass twice their size back to home base.

this is  ….  life on planet earth going about its busy ness.

 

the news is primarily of the people world . it is the measure of cruelty between humans – the measure of hatred and aggression – the sum of our lesser qualities. we name this reality and we call it news.

I am with Mary Daly – it is ‘olds’ –it is an old story way past its use by date and its purpose is to keep us in thrall in fear and disempowered.

not my friends though, by some quirk of nature they can witness the real time horrors and remain alert and alive to the grandeur of the earth around / within them.

the stories we tell each other, the stories we listen to say something about the dream we are dreaming, the life we are creating .

the story is our canvas and we are the brush strokes.

 

All I can do is make it my business to walk thru the mist in the forest in the morning, tilt my head towards the kookaburra chuckling  and sing a note back to the magpie. All I can do is live  within this given space of nature and spirit.

I do bear witness to grey kangaroo and black swamp wallaby, to sheoak and cutty grass, to web and eel and cloud. I bear witness to beauty and magic to grace of being to the ordinary everyday going about busyness of planetary life and these are the stories I want to share with you.