T H E
N A T U R E
O FP L A C E
Task 2, The Future of Print, was a love-letter to a special, sacred place.
This digital interactive experience is an exploration of how we relate to our local natural areas; the places we drive past daily, the trees or geological features that stand out to us.
The Sunshine Coast is internationally renowned for it’s natural beauty, conservation estate, and environmentalist culture. It exists within the McPherson overlap, the third most biodiverse place in Australia, and was subject to intense volcanic activity, resulting in lush basalt plateaus, dynamic massifs, and conspicuous volcanic plugs.
Like the rivers of NNSW or the Daintree of FNQ, natural areas necessarily inform local culture. Each denizen relates to those spaces in some form. From bush regenerators to property developers, each of us holds a unique perceptual bias that informs how we relate to our local areas.
How do you relate to yours?
Place is important.
Culture teaches us where and how to look; how long to linger, and what parts to linger on.
It facilitates possibility, defines value, and creates morality, shaping the What, How, and Why, developing the Who. Culture, however, finds it’s origin in the Where. All environments pose threats to survival, the adaptation to which, forms a social narrative, creating culture, and thus, Place.
Place, therefore, can be seen as relative. It requires a relational process; a conscious consideration of how One relates to their local environment.
There’s a private intimacy between Self & Place.
An endemic, idiosyncratic relationship exists between myself and the upper Martin Creek catchment. Those sandstone slabs hold emotional memory; the mossy streams lined with the roots of beloved species cradle my anxious body, the aqua hues of the water in late winter invigorate my animal being, the shade beneath silhouetted leaves relieves my tired soul.
as i sit on rocky slabs of the long-cooled planetary core,
ire turns to irie,
pain is not dislodged but my negative attachment to it is,
my soul plummets back into the vast depths of my being,
returning to it’s natural place,
one of rest,
one of acceptance,
one of peace,
one of oneness.
as i sit on rocky slabs of the long-cooled planetary core,
i wonder,
how do most go without,
such divine and necessary gifts of reprieve,
opting instead to achieve in mirth,
afraid to exist without pressure at all,
lest the weight of their sins makes fall,
tears of childhood never shed.
as i sit on rocky slabs of the long-cooled planetary core,
i marvel at the lack of comparison one can draw,
in terms of kind,
between the realm of Nature and that of the anthropic,
one seeks while the other sits,
one seeks means towards ends,
the other is endless.
we exist only in context with our environments
|
we exist only in context with our environments |
all apparent forms of separation between self and environment are merely symbolic
|
all apparent forms of separation between self and environment are merely symbolic |
who are you without your environment?
|
who are you without your environment? |
“In the woods we return to reason and faith.”
Please take a moment to listen and be still, like the trees in the forest, surrendered to the steady inertia of being without effort or need, ontologically content and free of want...
There’s something about the natural world that I have only ever been able to describe as transcendent.
The natural world exists without purpose. It has no agenda nor motive, it is pure expression, pure movement - pure unreasonable reality.
There is no design in nature, it doesn’t do anything, it has no function. The emergence of ecology has no idea at it’s core or ultimate destination, it isn’t linear.
Biology and ecology are the product of the inherent indifference of the natural world.
Anatomy is so well-resolved, complex, intricate, and functional because of immeasurable genetic iterations; the raw unguided process of natural selection is a blind force that, like alpine massifs or upper catchment gorges, slowly shapes reality into immense forms of novelty and deep beauty.
It has not been long since we slept under the stars by campfire.
We, as children of nature, never emancipated ourselves from the nourishing embrace of our Mother, only lost our ability to perceive or understand Her subtly.
Yet, there is a soothing breeze that blows in the Sky of our soul when we suddenly notice the birds vocalising or the way light reflects off of water. After going for a swim at the beach or in the creek you feel regulated, both at peace and energised, a subtle pulse that allows you to relax, let go, stop worrying, and be Present.
So often, I think, we live and create lifestyles founded on the belief that we aren’t enough and that we have to earn the right to live, to be happy, to be successful, to have fulfilling relationships - that we aren’t good enough, for whatever reason. And I think, we get so caught up in doing things that alleviate that pain, whether through avoidance or compensation, that we get lost in the sauce of our own lives, just addicted to repetitive analgesic behaviour.
But then, for myself, at least, my neuroses evaporate in the light
of the late-morning sun when I sit on a stone slab to air-dry after
a life-restoring swim. My attention turns away from thought and
towards the day.
I suddenly feel myself from the inside, my flesh is warm and heavy. I
care not for how I look for my chest is at ease, relaxed, after weeks of
frustrated tension without release, without expression, without recognition.
My face relaxes as the water drips onto the rock, there is nothing to do, I smile. I am home.
Not in a spatial sense, but in the most intimate and real of senses.
I stop wanting to be somewhere else, I
cease thinking about the things I think justify
stress, I am at ease with myself.
I’m open to the moment. I look around, watching
the sunlight filter through the trees, listen to their leaves rustle
as birds call from within the dim subcanopy strata.
I see a snake sharing the same experience as me, on the same
rock. Mutual curiosity is kept in check by mutual fear
as we stare at one another. The air is sweet,
perfumed by the mauve inflorescence of
native wisteria hanging high above.
I bite into the mango I brought
and it’s juice spills to my chin
and drips down. I smile again.
There is nowhere to go and
nothing to do. The unapologetic ease with which Nature conducts
herself strikes something deep within me. An authentic sincerity
swells and I remember Myself.
I remember that I am not defined by ability or
achievement, that I can sit here and do nothing and feel so, so good - that I am Good and
whole and lovable and loving as I am.
That it is impossible to earn the right to live a good, simple life with love
and self-respect, unbothered by irrelevant, wasteful worry.
I have deep love for those places that taught, teach, and reteach me such sublime lessons.
sunshine is medicine
|
lifeforms are beautiful
|
fruit is yummy
|
all of these things reside within you x
|
sunshine is medicine | lifeforms are beautiful | fruit is yummy | all of these things reside within you x |
I think many of us have forgotten what home feels like.
So cold can the world be, that we lose sense of trust and rightness. Becoming jaded, we lack the comfort
of unconditional embrace.
But there, Place waits, for us to turn back around and face it again.
Patiently, She waits.
I also think many believe themselves to be undeserving of such safe assurances, so murky the waters of morality have become in the complexity of maturity and culture, so harsh and unforgiving the world has been - has made them. And so they keep their backs turned to Place, in fear of shame, judgement, and rejection.
But Place exists beyond the confines of human morality and it’s fickle subjectivity. Cultural ideas hold no sway over Her uncompromising totality and absoluteness. Nature resolves the neurosis of dichotomies and reveals the always-deserving of everything within all things. She cannot judge or blame, only hold & accept.
Patiently, it waits for our return to sense and meaning, longing for our days of innocence happiness and unity with all things.
Simplicity.
Unburdened ease and grace. The unhurried steadiness of a stream, the gentle sifting of starlight.
All is here & all is Good.
I want to go out of this champloo with the softness of our region’s rich, dark, fertile, loamy soils.
Please, I urge you, when driving around the beautiful region that we are unbelievably fortunate to call our homes, or walking along one of the 150+ bushwalks that it boasts - take it in.
Let it fill you up.
Place yourself in context with your home. We are connected to so much more than brick, mortar, gyprock, milled radiata pine, and melted sand. We breathe the same air as the Phascogale’s and hear the same thunder as each koala. Our existences are connected in ways so intimate they would make some uncomfortable with the closeness of the Other.
But that is Life.
We are living ecology, our settlements more refined, but no different, than anthills or gumtree hollows. There is no subject or object - only the churning of phenomena that lives and breathes and feels. We never left the nest, nothing ever went wrong, it’s all perfect.
But we miss the opportunity to connect with real perfection and it’s healing touch when we’re subsumed by the habitual preoccupation with thought in all it’s fears and fantasies.
Life is so much more than the drudgery of living with the lights on low.
We become how we see and what we look at. The way we orient ourselves towards our lives and the monolith of Reality determines who we are and our function within public and private life.
If we never choose what we look at or how we interpret it, we will be subject to the visual production and framing of others. We must create our own way of seeing. We must choose to look at things that heal us, help us, and enable us to grow naturally, reaching out to connect with all that we were always meant to - to everything that is Good and right for us x and always was.
So have a think...
What was your relationship with local ecology?
Where did you feel a sense of Place?
What lessons have you learned from them?
Where could you form a relationship with the transcendence of Nature?
It need not be much and should require as little mental chatter as possible. The first thought is often the best and will only be degraded by further analysis or contemplation.
Thought is what severs the connection with what is always Known but needs time and space to percolate into consciousness.
Thank you for participating x