Gifts of sharing

This morning I shared half of my breakfast mango with a pademelon and her little joey. For anyone familiar with addictive mango behavior, this was a genuine sacrificial gesture.

This is spring time when the land should be abundant with luxuriant, green growth; a time when mothers feeding their young should have an easy time finding the food required to turn the green stuff into milk. However, this land hasn’t had a deep soaking of rain for over 13 months. When I walk around Windgrove, the desperate search for food by the animals is clearly evident. Sagg grasses, normally unpalatable, have been pulled up out of the ground and their base stems eaten. Low hanging eucalypt branches, coastal wattle and blackwood are striped of leaves leaving spare denuded twigs for branches.

It is tough to watch. Hence, the giving of the mango. Well, half of it, anyway.

A superficial gaze over the landscape and one might think that things are okay as there seems to be sufficient “green” covering the ground. This, the result of sprinkles of rain falling casually, periodically over the past 13 months, has kept the top inch of ground moist enough to promote little bursts of grass.

The term I use for this is “desert green”. A condition where, even though the land seems to be promoting growth, the actual soil is desperately dry. Punch through the thin top layer and the soil comes up powder dry.

Alison Croney and Matthew Mosher were here for five days this past week. Recent graduates of the Rhode Island School of Design, they are in Australia researching and gathering information on sustainable architecture and living. Like all motivated, wide eyed young adults, they are searching for clues to answer the questions: Is there a future for humanity on this earth? If so, how might they contribute?

When artists and others come to Windgrove, I usually ask nothing of them other than they use their time here in a way to nurture themselves. I won’t pretend that a week here will give anyone anything more than a sprinkling of inspiration. In order to leave Windgrove without just a “desert green” glow on their faces will require a lifetime of furthering the watering of their souls by embracing the diversity and constantly challenging aspects of life.

Allison left a gift of a small, painted totem that she placed at the top of the path leading down to the ocean.
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Matthew wrote several Windgrove poems.

One of these is:

Desert Green

It’s called desert green
When the rain lasts just long enough
to wash sea salt off she-oaks
The grass grows just enough
for the wallabies to cut it back to stems
but the moisture in the soil
falls and falls away
The she-oaks thirst for thirteen months
as waves rumble on Roaring Beach,
spray sea salt in the air.

Matthew Mosher

Just as I was finishing writing today’s blog, I received via email the poem below from my African friend and long time warrior for the earth and social justice, Bev Reeler. I feel compelled to offer it alongside Matthew’s poem and Alison’s totem as a way of honouring all three people’s journeys. For two of them, the path to awareness and wisdom is just beginning whilst Bev’s path is well and truly trodden.

I offer the best of wishes to Matthew and Allison. May they never lose sight of their, now, fresh and youthful desire to foster peace.

I offer the best of wishes to Bev for staying true to her path. May her elder years be filled with an inner peace.

Holding the Focus
to all the unseen heroes
November 2006

for so many years they have
been witness
to the process of destruction

they have given their lives to counting and recording

numbers …..
of baton marks on the soles of feet
of AIDS orphans
of deaths
of hungry mouths
of rapes
illegal arrests
torture victims

they have stitched the wounds
filmed and photographed and told the stories
and have held this mirror
to the world

How does one carry the witnessing of so much pain?
is it still possible to turn the gaze
and watch the planet turning
is it still possible to rest your souls?

we thank you

Bev Reeler