Conserved for future generations?

The first photo demonstrates a  small tract of land that has been left relatively as it was according to local government. I do not know the expected life span of the Greybox species of tree ( 40-200?) or other local flora but most of the trees are small. I feel it is a place of constant renewal.

It is just down the road from a current work site in a  very scenic new building by an artificial lake.

My concern whilst acknowledging the intention to protect the land for ‘future generations’ is with Generations. What does it imply? In the minds of most people it is for their use or benefit, what we call the anthropocentric view. It is essential emphasis is given to the ‘future generations’ of plants and animals protecting their right to be; the self existent matrix of life present   the local eco system and the place itself. Including all the mineral ores, microbes and other such aspects that make up a whole.

We must start teaching our children that the world is not here to serve them. It is not here only for humans. We are not masters of the domain but  a part of it. A co-habitant. We occupy the same space as every other species and yet our actions, our lifestyles, indulgences and appetites are wiping them out.

It is tragic to lose the beauty of life. Whether one subscribes to views such as transmigration of souls, of  life forms  that allows for and accepts the movement of life between kingdoms and realms, or not, and gives a space for all souls all life forms to recycle. Loss is  loss and often unnecessary. The point for me is, the great beauty and diversity here now, of which we have lost so much already. The life that exists does so as part of an integrated whole. For complex systems to evolve and thrive takes the passage of long spans of geological time and the essential stability of conditions. Climate change is a constant , the tides of life on earth are always shifting, species always move, adapt mutate and settle new areas, emerging as new forms, but now we are taking over the earth there is very little space left to go that allows for this movement without a big cleanse. We have degraded our environments considerably, changing the very face of the earth ( clearing, mining, etc) and her innards (drilling, hydraulic fracturing, tapping the water tables, injecting nuclear waste and toxic chemicals for storage). New balance must be found and it will, it may not favour the human realms. Unless the human realms make  reparation efforts and become mass agents of re-genesis and bio-genesis.

QUESTION What does future generations mean to you?

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I am Home?Who is home? What does home Mean? For whom? 

Zoning- allotting dividing Life. Designating what can be and where.

Me and My Body day. Expressions and identity- don't we all have an identity? The right to be and be at home in our bodies, our homes our communities of life? 

I write this as I sit and ponder the future of my programs  combining the arts, therapies and activism. I am working on Eco arts Education. What ever workshops I do I try to weave in relational themes, environmental themes. I am not an exert but I do care and I do what I can. With the children it is crating awareness of life, through pictures, through songs, through reflecting on what they know about their world already and what they know of their body in space.  How it is all one big jigsaw puzzle. We work with imagery of forest, flower garden, birds, butterfly’s simple things which can carry stories  which reveal a state of awareness (or not) of the world around them. A couple of pictures of the children’s art is included.

Spirit of place musings. Eynesbury Grey box forest.

Most of the trees are young, I would be surprised if any were over fifty years. You can see the rate of growth and regeneration. Some elder trees are present but not many. This  was a land teeming with forest pre colonialism. The rate of growth does not seem to match the rate of decay. Yet there is a good presence of birds. It is dense but dispersed. It is a small pocket of land that just stands out starkly in the clear felled landscape all around it, that was originally back in the 1860’s onwards converted  farm land. So what has been allowed to remain is important, a green wedge a vital sanctuary for local species, a corridor. Yet how we think that narrow spans of green life, of  bio habitat are enough to ensure conservation of species is beyond me.

The place says help us to remain- help people to understand we exist too, if we are not regarded we cease to be. Life is to behold the majesty of creation, the diversity of forms- Speak for us. The same  message I get from land everywhere. Speak for us, speak for me. The winds share the mystery of the cycles of time, the forest holds the memory in tis dna, know the seasons, know the tides, understand the field of life. Relate, be with us.

I include pictures which demonstrate signage in the area. Talking about concepts like Our Home- a current future estate development a few minutes down the road. A place of displacement from over a hundred years ago for other species. A place that was cleared, a place that is now to be home to humans  and dogs and all their creations. Another showing bones, that speak the melody of the past, natural tree sculptures and other things.

Ask yourself What Does Conserved for Future generations really mean? What guarantees are there that people will honour their words when the bones tell us life goes in cycles, creatures come and go civilisations rise and fall. Decay is a certainty, growth a constant, yet some growth is out of control. Ponder. How might you make a difference and educate the future? What bones do you leave behind?

http://www.gondwananet.com/australian-gum-tree.html

http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/determinations/greyboxgreygumwetFD.htm