Oh, it’s been thrilling to have my beautiful Creeksong book available to the wider world. Finally!!
Somebody asked me last week if I was nervous now it was finally for sale. What if people found it “silly”?
My response surprised me! Nope. Not at all. Never.
For years, my friends have been reading draft chapters and making suggestions. Some of the wisest people on Earth have read it. And it passed muster. So it must be ready for you — my new readers.
How does it feel to finish a midlife project—at 80! Great! Rapturous, actually.
Of course, I wonder about all those great chapters left on the cutting room floor. Chapters I adored. They didn’t make the cut.
So I thought I’d begin with some pieces of writing that I loved. Sharing them before they fade from my memory.
Here is one such story —written after my return to the city.
Weeping
Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia, 10 January 1993
I’m weeping in my new university office on the ground floor of the Institute for Science and Technology Policy (ISTP). I’ve been here for about two weeks. My fellow students are greenie scholars–mostly transport activists from all over the world—eager to study with Peter, a famous activist academic. A mellow crew. My office mate, Aidan, half my age, is very companionable. We share an interest in the moral and ethical aspects of sustainability and are rapidly becoming soul mates. He’s reading Heidegger–too much for me as a neophyte philosopher.
So, life is good here.
But, oh, the culture shock!
Even though this new campus is in a peaceful woodland setting with only native vegetation, it’s not Deep Creek.
New violence outside my window initially sets my teeth on edge and now has reduced me to tears. During my year at Deep Creek, my whole approach to my life in the landscape was to keep my impacts as gentle and negligible as possible. (After the violence of killing the White Gum, of course—which I now regard as my life’s most reprehensible act.)
Outside my office window, a man is raking leaves on a manicured lawn. I can see that he hates everything about those leaves: they’re rubbish to be removed to tidy up the campus lawns. His eyes are cold; his tense jaw emits silent curses that he hurls at the lawn. Every stroke (or strike) of the rake is a study in rage and frustration.
He hates those leaves.
Who could hate leaves?
Even with the constant threat of fire at Deep Creek, all the residents, Mica included, respected leaves, calling them litter only to acknowledge their ecological and fire-management status once fallen.
But “rubbish”?
Never!
Leaves—like all aspects of the Mother Goddess Gaia–are sacred.
Oh, dear! What’s to become of me? Will I ever be able to fit back into professional life?
Well, I got what I bargained for–and more. No, how will I fit my bursting, open heart into academic life? Into everyday life? Hopefully, the warm hospitality of the Institute will shield me while I grow enough protection (another mask?) to survive in the modern world. Whether I can grow enough protection to flourish is another matter.
I’ve been reading about courage lately. My challenges can be distilled into one word: courage. When I boarded that flight to Darwin fourteen months ago, I had no idea where I was going or what I was doing. I wanted my quest at Deep Creek to unfold beyond what I’d been taught. I wanted to test the boundaries of my courage.
Now, having tested those boundaries, I want to use my whole heart to live my truth as bravely as I can. I want to continue to experiment with the slow courage that sustains me when things seem out of view. I want to face myself in the mirror and know who I am. I want to be able to manifest my inner courage in my outer efforts to face the things that I fear. I want to learn to love what I fear.
I want to face my brokenness and find the courage to face—and deeply love and appreciate—another person so that my brokenness can be healed.
Ultimately, I want to find peace in my life by living courageously.
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