A little help is needed

Nine years ago I gave a speech at the Australian national Students and Sustainability Conference and my opening remarks were:

As you sit here now, charged in the belief that you can help sustain this world through your environmental activism, I want to ask you: What do you have in your personal belief systems that will guide you through the rest of your twenties, your thirties, forties and beyond? Life is easy, when it’s sunny. How will you pick yourself up, though, when the storms of life ravage your heart? Like the spider who daily mends her web, how will you mend your wounds? Eventually, your friends will move on, your lover will vanish, technology will make your job redundant, and you will be left with nothing but your fragile ego self to carry you forward. Can you do it? Can you do it alone? Can you do it without embodying the belief that the sustainability of self is intimately linked to a sacred Earth?

On Tuesday of this week, Allana Beltram—the Weld Angel in the above photo—came to Windgrove to walk the Peace Path and sit by the Peace Fire in meditation to seek inspiration, strength, hope and a way through some personally troubling times.

It was bad enough when the Tasmania Police and Forestry Tasmania sued her this past month for her artistic civil disobedience action to protect the Weld Forest by sitting in a tripod dressed up as an angel. But this week she also found out that her partner, environmental activist Ben Morrow (who also happens to be one of the Gunns 20 people being sued), has been diagnosed with cancer. Thirty three year old Ben spent nearly a year in the threatened forests of Tasmania’s Styx Valley at the Global Rescue Station helping to raise awareness of the plight of Tasmania’s ancient forests.

So how will Allana deal with this double whammy? How will Ben heal himself? The questions I asked nine years ago still resonate for me because these eco-warriors who are there on the front line need to remain with us in this world in ways that are physically, emotionally and spiritually vigourous.

At the conference I ended the speech with:

In thirty years’ time, I want all of you back here for another conference, still active in the environment movement, still compassionate about the Earth, still in love with life, still living a life of integrity, courage, compassion and humour. Do what is necessary now to make sure you’ll be here in the year 2028. It will come.

Become one with nature. Embody this truth and it will sustain you. Even in your darkest hour, you are not alone. There is a great support network out there. Allow it to open you up to release the great shout of joy that resides in you and that has been waiting for years to come out.

Beyond the support network of the natural world that I referred to in the conference speech, there is also the human support network. Allana and Ben need our help to both defend their separate court cases as well as to have money to give Ben the opportunity to seek specialist treatment. We need them.

Checks can be sent to:
The Ben Morrow Fund
C/O The Wilderness Society
130 Davey St,
Hobart Tas. 7000
Australia