Earlier in the week I had attempted to plant out some new seedlings near the cliff face, but the ground, after not having much rain going on near eight months, was bone dry. Not much chance of survival here for tiny roots. Determined to do something, the week was spent repairing the many seedling trees that had been planted in years past.
By being involved in the act of repairing, nurturing and promoting growth, this sharpened my sense of what it might mean to survive. By noticing the many trees withered and dead even within still standing protective plastic bags, this focused my attention on what (or who) continues through into maturity.
Low to the ground, solitary and scattered across the paddock are little clumps of “native cranberry bush”. Prickly to touch, the animals won’t eat them. The windward side displays the skeleton twigs of too much salt spray. To leeward, the green, lush leaves are remarkably healthy. In-between these two areas is the “orange belt”; the zone where life meets death within the one living organism.
“Fascinating“, I think, as I begin to wonder whether or not the human condition bears any resemblance to what I see on the native cranberry. What areas within me are now dead from too much of whatever? And, that beautiful orange complimenting the green; is that to be found somewhere as well? What keeps me flourishing? How do any of us survive?
Bombs drop in Lebanon. Depleted uranium floats in the dust in Iraq. Soldier-children bear arms. Mothers mourn in Israel, Gaza, Afghanistan, China, America.
Amnesty International runs a photo on the back of the Buddhist magazine, ‘Tricycle’, with the caption:
Sudan. 2004. A refugee who was shot and wounded while defending his daughters from armed militia members who tried to rape them.
I look in his face and wonder what is dead and what just might be green and moist; tender, loving, even hopeful. Perhaps?
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