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?

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

It would seem that every day we hear of more pollutions, chaos and sufferings. It would appear to be, because the great collective believe it to be so, as part of our collective dreaming. Dreaming born out of largely unconscious dynamics, urges and power relations. That which is manifest is mirror of our mind, mirror of our emotional state and physical state. We dream out nightmares into being until we awaken.

Our sanity is being tested by our creativity, our creativity not born in balanced relation and love but a mix of curiosity, fear,  desperation, destructiveness,  and the love of power. The earth once pristine offered sanctuary amidst her wild beauty. Yet everywhere our kind has stepped, have we interfered with the natural order and wrought our own creations of destruction.

Coming out of the dark ages into scientific realizations and now consciousness realizations demands that we own our ability. If we do not start exercising wisdom born from experience, we rent our own demise. The way is clear...........choose to create sanctuary of lose our sanity.

Sanctuaries of sanity are needed which are complete zones/ spaces protected at a mineralogical, biological level, electromagnetic level, and sonic level. All life within must be held sacred and remain untouched or rehabilitated so that the minerals can serve their function as the strata upon which the plant world resides, which supports the animal and provides a rich tapestry of being for all life to co exist, where,  for us  we can come  to heal, reflect, learn and realize. In times gone by this function was served by sacred sites. SANCTITY HAS BEEN DEFILED.

National parks are not enough. They are sold off to mining explorations, or forestry operations, World heritage listings undermined. Collective agreements violated, action wrought with no consequence but for short term gain, no thought given to the decimation of species and ecological balance. Once gone the breath of a thousand years no longer transpires, the branches are gone which gave home to many.

Increasingly disease and  stress, are manifesting within us, within all species. We are constantly tuned in to the great grid umbilicus, the electromagnetic age.  For biological integrity and balance we need to disconnect from our devices and connect in to  at the biological level with other living beings, and the planets magnetic field, We are severing ourselves from it and believing if we acquire the knowledge we can go to other planets when this one fails us. We are out of our minds, behaving with insanity. Only insanity would sabotage the integrity of the whole. The corporate monster will permit us to bite off our own tail.

Our pollutions span the waters, the earth, the air and even the region of fire with the use of energy/ transformative power of the electromagnetic spectrum, and subatomic and nuclear force, and disregard oftentimes for spiritual teachings and truths. Our pollution is of the mind and emotions, the body and spirit. Mind is the correlate of air, emotion of water, the  body of earth, spirit of fire. Our pollution seeks  the ether, the force level of all things and penetrates the realm of sound. The cacophony deafens, irritates, drives us crazy, scares  away other life forms. Our symphony is changing, the voices of the living being replaced by machines and devices, Industry and mechanization. We seek peace, to retreat. Sometimes we go into these zones to stimulate, other times we seek retreat. We do not question what we hear, because it is normal to us, but we must examine the nature of that normal. What is it? Where is the balance of systems? IS it life supporting, or a son of Industry seeking to further conquer the world?

STOP- LISTEN!

WE NEED SANCTUARIES OF SANITY

SONIC SANCTUARIES

WHAT ARE WE HEARING?

WHAT CAN WE KNOW?

ARE WE LISTENING?

DO WE NOTICE?

Change is every day, some within our  control,  most beyond us, within this ceaseless movement we must create rest, we need to create space within and reclaim without. Sanctuaries of Sanity, places of repose, reflection where all can come, where all is sacred, where a global convention protects the Integrity of that which we are so rapidly losing, the FOUNDATION OR LIFE SUPPORT ITSELF.

And yet such a  planetary sanctuary begins with a reclaiming our own mind and body. Our body must become Sanctuary for our soul, not slave. A welcome home, not a place of torment. Our mind, one with spirit, at one with the greater universal being that permeates all. We must realize  we are the sanctuary and extend that sanctuary field to all life, lest we all fall together into the decimation of souls, of which there is no return, no return to the state of the garden where we were.  We would instead leave survivors to inherit the corridors of nightmares and scavenge amidst the waters of our old ways. We need no less that a COMPLETE REVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS, a turn around, to an enlightened humanity where we cast aside the toys of war, and the playthings of ignorance and grow into our becoming one with, again, in The Sanctuary of Sanity.

There has long been a link to hearing, listening and prophecy and the failure to take heed. Native prophets, Christian mystics, nature mystics, daoists, Buddhists, all speak about relationship too. He who has ears let him hear. (I use the translation given not politically correct adaptations), Jeshua (Jesus), knew even then that hearing , perception, attention and comprehension are selective, albeit within a varied time, culture and worldview. Truths are eternal and translate down the corridors of time. He knew that people choose according to their context/ culture ‘what’ to give their ears to.

The fact that the ear is linked to the limbic system , to survival in it’s most primal form, has been viewed as late as an evolutionary throw off, something we are beyond ,in our sophisticated technological age, by virtue of cognitive capacity and mind over matter rationality. But the body does not lie. Yet, we ignore these auditory signals all around us at our peril. There exist tales of the gods bringing great destruction because the cacophony of man grew too great in times before, it was making even the gods crazy.

Lack of, disappearance, excess and cacophony are just as important to take head of as are lions, in the jungle, corruption in the cities or violence in the hearth.


I invite you to explore aspects of this in upcoming workshops 

1.       ‘Music and Sound in the Healing arts- What you need to know’. June 28 St Kilda

2.       ‘Healing Persons, Healing Communities Healing Planet’ July 26 St Kilda

Please check the ‘What’s on’ tab under ‘Workshops’  in coming weeks at   www.creativetherapeuticencounters.com.au

Sincerely with love Catherine

THE SONIC SANCTUARY LOGO ABOVE IS THE NAME OF MY AMBIENT MUSIC LABEL WHICH WILL FEATURE ALL MY SELF RELEASED MUSIC, AVAILABLE SOON, SEE LINK BELOW 

http://www.catherinemeeson.com/

“Seek and ye shall find...the kingdom of heaven is within”.J.C