Moving on

A whisper of hair across a pensive look whilst a whisp of wind guides tomorrow through the air.

Long time friend and colleague, Alexandra deBlas, has just resigned from her job as an environmental journalist with the ABC.

And, no wonder. A few months earlier “the board” axed her highly rated and highly successful Earth Beat program; a program that she had presented for over seven years. (With a conservative government in power it seems that environmental news and reporting is not deemed a worthwhile subject for the public to have any intelligent awareness about.) Not wanting to keep her talents on the back burner until there was a shift in priorities at the ABC, when the Australian Bush Heritage Fund approached Ali to become their communications strategist, she accepted.

All of us who have ever made major changes in our lives, would understand the feelings of butterflies in the stomach and the middle-of-the night questions of indecision that come to anyone about to embark on a new career. Winds of Change always come with a little something extra, it seems.

As we sat in a little sheltered rock garden at the Point looking out over the vastness of the sea and pondering many of life’s questions, Ali quietly recited portions of a David Whyte poem. The full poem reads:

Song For the Salmon

For too many days now I have not written of the sea,
nor the rivers, nor the shifting currents
we find between the islands.

For too many nights now I have not imagined the salmon
threading the dark streams of reflected stars,
nor have I dreamt of his longing
nor the lithe swing of his tail toward dawn.

I have not given myself to the depth to which he goes,
to the cargoes of crystal water, cold with salt,
nor the enormous plains of ocean swaying beneath the moon.

I have not felt the lifted arms of the ocean
opening its white hands on the seashore,
nor the salted wind, whole and healthy
filling the chest with living air.

I have not heard those waves
fallen out of heaven onto earth,
nor the tumult of sound and the satisfaction
of a thousand miles of ocean
giving up its strength on the sand.

But now I have spoken of that great sea,
the ocean of longing shifts through me,
the blessed inner star of navigation
moves in the dark sky above
and I am ready like the young salmon
to leave his river, blessed with hunger
for a great journey on the drawing tide.

David Whyte

May Ali be blessed on this, her new great journey.