It’s winter.
When I began blogging I did not plan or expect to return to the theme of
seasonal cycles[i]. I expected to leave it behind...but I have
returned and it has been relevant.
Autumn, one of the themes in my previous blog,
ended up being the time when we as a family sorted and cleared out my mother’s
belongings and home. So many memories...so much to let
go...perfectly timed for autumn.
It was fitting, then, that we closed the door on our family home for the last time in
winter; the time when all withdraws and
seems dead and gone, and the seeds of
new life are hidden...stirring unnoticed.
The house was, for me, a symbol of my parents hopes
and dreams for themselves and their family, some which were fulfilled, others
not. My dad built the house himself with
the help of family and friends; something
he might not have been able to do with current council regulations. Every brick, every plank, every nail, a
commitment to this future.
I think I was
four when it was being built and
my sister was born not long after. So it has been the centre of family and
extended family life for over sixty years.
Dad died there and mum managed to live there, with much assistance from
carers and family, up to two weeks before she too died. Yes, many memories.
I’ve made a collage of photos of them both which
traces moments of their lives, from the time they met to their old age. All photos show them smiling together at the
camera: pictures of happiness and
contentment. Of course life is not like that. It's more complicated. We all conceal our hidden stories
from the camera if we can. The resulting
pictures are illusions. But the illusion
is what I have chosen to remember, and we choose to remember. Our choice, as individuals and as humans,
seems to be to ignore those things which challenge our idealised beliefs about
ourselves and those we love. We would rather believe the
illusion.
In Australia we have experienced a mid-winter
election; aimed at triggering the end of the old government mix and beginning
of a new. It ended up a close brush with
a ‘hung parliament’; not at all what the
government expected. The people spoke
and they spoke of hidden dissatisfaction with the offerings of the two major
parties, especially with ‘the economy’ and ‘balancing books’ being presented as
the only platform promoted by the political right. Noticeably absent from the two major parties
were any references to ‘global warming’, sustainability or environmental
issues. What we have ended up with is more of a mixed Senate than before: many voices and perspectives needing to be
acknowledged and accommodated. Perhaps there is hope for serious and in depth
debate.
Simultaneously I have been reading Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything[ii]. What a revelation: the hidden world of fossil fuel extraction,
pollution and Green politics. What
shocked me most was to learn that the fossil fuel industry is not only driven
by human need for fuel but by the need to put as much excess as possible into
storage to increase share prices...and that the pollution, especially as a result
of dirty fuel extraction as easy fuel sources decline, will be continuing to
manifest over years because the effects on the environment and animals
sometimes takes time to exhibit fully (read the book for the details). We only need to look at what is happening to
Australia’s once ‘Great’ Barrier Reef.
As respected and awarded marine biologist Frank Talbot has said,
‘The reef is the bellwether of
the health of our oceans...We should take the bleaching as a major statement by
the reef that what is happening is real and damaging, and it needs to be
addressed’. (Frank Talbot, 2016)[iii]
The other unexpected shock was of those global
Green groups who have fossil fuel representatives on their boards and have been
compromised. And yes, there is more,
much more. Yet not all filters through
to the general public. Every now and
again there may be a crisis or someone notable speaks up and makes the news, but
it doesn’t last long and it is forgotten the next day.
Our planet seems to be in so much difficulty in so
many places it is not overstating to say that it is reaching, or has reached,
its dying phase. We have not yet solved
the contradiction between the lifestyle of excess the developed world has
created and the resulting exponentially increasing pollution, global warming,
and dying of species. We have
compromised our, and others’, food sources and environments needed for longterm survival, and we do not seem to be exhibiting any interest in actively
redressing it. We prefer the illusion that ‘all is well’ and even though alternatives are ready to be put
into place, there does not seem to be the political or public will to face the
problem head on and take action.[iv]
At the core of Klein’s writing is the assertion that humans have a moral and ideological problem, and that only a change in the current global philosophy of domination, control, and growth at all costs will result in a sustainable future for the planet and ourselves. It is disappointing, frustrating and concerning to read again of issues which have already been addressed extensively in writing on this topic from the 1960’s onward. To mention a few,
At the core of Klein’s writing is the assertion that humans have a moral and ideological problem, and that only a change in the current global philosophy of domination, control, and growth at all costs will result in a sustainable future for the planet and ourselves. It is disappointing, frustrating and concerning to read again of issues which have already been addressed extensively in writing on this topic from the 1960’s onward. To mention a few,
‘..the moral imperative of respect for life...the need for population
control and for bringing a halt to the waste of resources and pollution of the
environment...we are split against ourselves...’ (Mary Daly, 1973[v]...
a theme she returned to in subsequent publications)
‘I share the conviction that the crisis that threatens the destruction
of the earth is not only social, political, economic, and theological, but is
at root spiritual.’ (Carolyn Christ, 1989)[vi]
‘...I believe that the metaphor of dancing could prove helpful in
articulating and enacting a different kind of rationality, an ecosophical ratio, which might better equip us for
safeguarding life in a perilously warming world’ (Kate Rigby, 2009[vii])
At the beginning of this blog I have placed a photo which expresses,
for me, our winter sky. It could have
been taken anywhere; that is the
illusion. It is cropped. If you pan back there is a clothesline, which
places the photographer in a backyard...somewhere.
And in the fourth or third century BCE, writing attributed to Lao-Tzu,[viii].
Governing people and serving heaven
Is like living off the land.
Living sparingly and responding quickly
Means accumulating TE
There is nothing than cannot be overcome.
There is no limit.
You can become the country
And the country’s mother,
And nourish and extend it.
This is called deep roots, firm base.
Shih wei shen ken du ti
This is the TAO of living long and seeing far.
This is the TAO of living long and seeing far.
Further back and there are apartment buildings. We are definitely in suburbia, perhaps the
city.
Further still and the sky is now background...a
distant memory.
We seem so far removed from the natural world in
our daily lives. That too is an illusion
for we are, in reality, totally dependent on it for survival. How do we refocus? How can we be motivated to care...and act?
In 2000 I wrote the following,
Once
I had a dream
a dream of Nirvana
of Eden before the Fall
of a time
when...
And I believed as I believed others believed
that if I searched I would find the truth
of this perfect beginning of
all things
culmination
of all things
fulfilment
of all things
But the truth that was revealed did not match
the dream
and nomatter how close I came to the dream
it remained just
out of reach
out of touch
with the reality of the truth revealed.
So we have made a pact the dream and I
She had shed her half bloomed petals
revealing her centre
her heart
her potential
her
seed.
And I have taken this seed and hidden her
in the deepest recesses of my womb.
For we have made a pact the dream and I
and we will love, nurture and protect each
other
until the time is right
and then,
and only then
will she risk to birth again.
We are at the crossroads and have been for a while. Do we take it seriously or will it be ‘business as usual and let tomorrow look after itself’? We may not be able to solve the problems of other nations or the world, but in our own backyard? Surely that is possible.
In 1999 I wrote,
We are at the crossroads and have been for a while. Do we take it seriously or will it be ‘business as usual and let tomorrow look after itself’? We may not be able to solve the problems of other nations or the world, but in our own backyard? Surely that is possible.
In 1999 I wrote,
Midwinter,
the
time of magic,
the
time of conception:
that
hidden unseen, unnoticed change when life begins
and
the potential to be...is
Winter is the time for new beginnings. If only we could say, mean and commit to, 'this time I/we will take the road to recovery'.
c. Annette Maie, 2016
[i]
One of the underlying themes of my thesis,2002
[ii] Naomi
Klein, This Changes Everything:
Capitalism vs. the Climate. Penguin, 2014
[iii] Frank
Talbot interviewed in The Australian, Wednesday
July 6 2016.
[iv]
The other night a friend told me of a family member who, I think this is
correct, completed his solar engineering degree only to have to retrain in an
alternative field because of the government’s backsteps on global warming...and
that he was one of many in the same boat.
[v]
Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father.
[vi]
in Plaskow & Christ, Weaving the
Visions, New Patterns in feminist Spirituality
[vii]
Kate Rigby, ‘Dancing With Disaster’ in Ecological
Humanities, Issue 46. The full title of her book, Dancing With Disaster: Environmental
Histories, Narratives, and Ethics for Perilous Times.
[viii]
from Stephen Addiss & Stanley Lombardo’s translation of Tao Te Ching, 1993
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