Seeking silence in a noisy world by Adam Ford
A deeply spiritual man, Ford has always found nature to be a powerful source of healing silence.He can find beauty and peace in simply watching and listening to the natural world...
"The loss of connection with the natural world is the source of our apathy," Bonnie, a Noongar elder and traditional owner of the land, part of it also covers the outskirts of the capital city, where my house stands as well...
She explains to me how much pride her people take in maintaining land, constantly walking the land, removing twigs around the base of trees, watering young shoots and thirsty trees,
perform controlled burn offs to prevent forest fires that would destroy the eco system and many life forms within it, that in turn would feed her people.
"Why are you doing this?" Stops her people in nearby National Park. Her response is always the same: "It is the right thing to do."
For those of us fortunate to live in the land we now call Australia, the wisdom of the original custodians has not been completely destroyed, although in places the knowledge of landcare is hanging on by a threat...
Make contact with the traditional owners of your place, humbly receive their wisdom and the dreaming of your land...
It is vital for us all to help rekindle and honour the lost indigenous wisdom and become again and together custodians of our beautiful but fragile Australia...
The wisdom of Aboriginal people teach us, that humans, as the most advanced from of life on Earth are not here to exterminate weaker species or live in the lap of luxury at the expense of 'lesser' creatures...
but rather use our superior skills, our mind, body and spirit for learning and growing....
to become finely attuned to nature's rhythms...
to give our life a purpose greater than our temporal self...
to allow life to flow through us to bring strength and sustenance and compassion and healing to all we encounter: human, animal, plant and more...
Learn from the wisdom of Aboriginal people that was gained over many centuries and through many generations passed down from elders to grandchildren with every generation adding more...
through patiently watching and sharing the newest insights for landcare. They are not worshipping the physical tree or rock or land...
nor they worship that particular spirit, like a Tibetan monk, they worship the spirit of life that lies beyond and lives through that object, land or spirit....
Re-establish our connection with nature, re-discover the ancient wisdom...it is here all around you, are you listening?
Silencing of the heart
The life of nature
is not found in parts
however beautiful,
but in the whole.
Light, air and space,
the meaning is in the being
or life that is
evoked,
ineffable
in itself
howering between things...
Desperation unfolds
like a luminous dream.
How can we imagine
what our lives should be
without natural world
broken in parts
and such,
damaged as a whole.
In Beijing
they want
the skies
to be blue and clear again.
In Fukishima
they want
the cascade
of radioactive failures to end.
In the Torres Straits
they want
the threat of High King tides
breaking down
the old sea walls
to be dealt with
by more
than fresh concrete.
Our careless actions
shattering
the still wholeness
of a harmonious world.
How can we imagine
what our lives should be
without the illumination
of the lives of others?
The quiet,
seemingly unremarkable lives
of our forebearers
reminds us
that with privilege
comes
the untanticipated power
to change our own lives.
How we can think
far more freely
about love and family
and our place in nature
our death in it.
They call us to converse and to act,
for the sake of a better life
and a better world.
Dream encounters
on a brief stroll
through my past
take me back
to my Grandmother's door,
in the Eastern Europe
to her wooden cottage
surrounded by a lovely garden
on a small piece of land
she inherited from her parents,
surrounded by thousands
of tiny pheasants dwellings
in the Carpathian hills.
We walk carefully
through fresh green vineyard
her Grandfather's
property and pride
and she talked
about World War I
trench was
where we stand,
detonations,
carbonised bodies,
sweat and pain.
My Grandomother
was just a child
they lived through it
by taking care
of their land.
Digging nice and round potatoes
on a field nearby
she points at the underground cellar
hidden
under a pile of rocks.
There she spent the years
of World War II
with her children,
my mother was just two...
lonely life,
scarred of guns and soldiers
always in darkness
and hungry too.
"Just few memories remind us
this land is who we are
and why we are still here."
Then communists came
with a new highway
and a big dam.
My Grandmother's willage
with many, many others
disappeared under water,
never to be seen again.
Thousands of people
without home
land all around
empty
dead
left for erosion
to finish the job.
Ecological disaster
followed
floods,
water logging,
downstream riverbanks
silting up,
salinity
and spread of diseases...
"This is progress," the communist official welcomed us,
when we and others cramped into one hastily built flat
in the middle of the mud.
My Grandmother never settled down.
She used to shuffle along the dusty roadside
looking for land she lived for and love,
"It feels wrong,'
she kept repeating,
until she lost her mind.
I sat inside our tiny flat
the day after she died
and said to myself:
"Maybe she has not moved out
of our flat and our lives,
but moved further in,
into the lives of those,
like me,
who benefited so much from her selfless giving
and never ending compassion."
When I left my homeland,
when I lost my home,
when my parents died,
when I left my family behind,
when I got sick,
when I lost my job...
I always said to myself:
"Keep moving,
who knows what lies ahead of you,
live without borders,
try neither to harm,
nor destroy
what keeps you alive,
what brings you joy,
your Grandmother is at your side,
cheering you all the way..."
Seeking silence in a noisy world by Adam Ford
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