Prime Minister Fails Leadership Test
If there was ever any doubt about what sort of man John Howard is, it’s become clear in the last little while in his response to two incidents.
The first was his initial comment that it was up to Big Bad Heff whether or not to apologise to Julia Gillard for badmouthing her in a way that was all but universally condemned by everyone else – and then telling his henchman to roll over when it became clear that he’d badly misjudged the public mood. He showed his real colours and then tried to camouflage them.
Then yesterday (14/5/07) he defended a Sydney newspaper’s headline How could she? about the mother who (presumably) abandoned her child at a hospital door. It’s what most people would say said the Prime Minister.
Never mind that people who said that would be wrong and could do with a bit of leadership. John Howard not only showed what a coarse mindset he has, but failed the leadership test dismally on both counts.
Wednesday, 16 May 2007
Thursday, 10 May 2007
ZIMBABWE – How come anyone’s still asking?
Should the undisputed champions of World Cricket be going to Zimbabwe? Is sport just sport and nothing else? Well, tobacco companies are just tobacco companies. They make products people want to buy. They’re just giving people what they want. What’s wrong with that? Going to Zimbabwe in the present circumstances would be like turning up at the Holocaust Deniers conference in Tehran to give a paper demonstrating that the Holocaust did occur, claiming that academic activity is just academic activity.
But there’s this other problem isn’t there. If the Australian team doesn’t go they’ll be fined $2 million. So? By whom? The International Cricket Council? Who the hell are they in any scheme of things that actuall matter? There’s a really simple solution to this. Two actually. The first one is to kick Zimbabwe out of the international cricket community. Then there’d be no need to go and no fine to pay. Can’t be done? Then here’s Plan B. Pull out of international cricket as it is presently constituted and start again. Who’s in a better position to do that right now than Australia - the undisputed masters of the cricket universe?
Why are you sneering? Hasn’t Australia done exactly that on the gravest moral issue facing the planet today? The Australian government refuses to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and has rallied it big mates to an alternative response. Compared with Global Warming getting cricket sorted out should be a synch.
But there’s this other problem isn’t there. If the Australian team doesn’t go they’ll be fined $2 million. So? By whom? The International Cricket Council? Who the hell are they in any scheme of things that actuall matter? There’s a really simple solution to this. Two actually. The first one is to kick Zimbabwe out of the international cricket community. Then there’d be no need to go and no fine to pay. Can’t be done? Then here’s Plan B. Pull out of international cricket as it is presently constituted and start again. Who’s in a better position to do that right now than Australia - the undisputed masters of the cricket universe?
Why are you sneering? Hasn’t Australia done exactly that on the gravest moral issue facing the planet today? The Australian government refuses to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and has rallied it big mates to an alternative response. Compared with Global Warming getting cricket sorted out should be a synch.
Cyclone Dreaming 16 – Cyclone Dreaming
[ This is the last of sixteen pieces comprising the
Cyclone Dreaming cycle.
For context and continuity start at item no one.
Click on Newer Posts to move to the next item. ]
Cyclone Dreaming The universe that we observe is, according to Quantum physics, one of an infinite number of possibilities. Yet, that it exists at all is nothing less than astounding, depending as it does on the coincidence of so many precise conditions that it cannot be accounted for by chance, and implies the organising activity of consciousness and choice. Some physicists speak of an Anthropic Principle, saying that the universe exists as it does because it is chosen by the observer. Others speak of a self‑organising universe that comes to know itself in the self‑reflective mind of one or more of its diverse self‑manifestations. The cosmology embedded in myths about ancestors who created – by a series of violent acts – the landscape and all its life forms, including human beings and their complex interrelationships with everything in the cosmos, resonates perfectly with a quantum view of the universe. What we have always known by intuition is affirmed by modem science, which cut itself free of mythology by embarking on a program of observing the world in order to know it. At its cutting edge it has arrived at knowledge so paradoxical – the no thingness of the universe ‑ that it can be a gateway into genuine mystical experience. The self-organising no‑thingness of a cyclone could hardly be surpassed in this landscape as the totem that generates awe (what used to be known as "fear of the lord') and draws us into a cooperative role with the cosmos. A civilisation whose relationships have brought the earth's dynamic systems to the verge of chaos in little more than two centuries is not in a position to assert that its predecessors' claims about their relationships with the land and its biomass is just a lot of old dreaming. We may find, if we have the courage to try, that we too can dance the rain.
CYCLONE DREAMING is the insight that recognises the cosmic significance of events in our environment; and the commitment to act/change within the limitations of the cosmic process as it manifests itself in this particular place over time.
Cyclone Dreaming 15 – Badi; Kulunggur
Badi; Kulunggur
There are two locations on the Australian coastline that sustain the highest rate of cyclonic landfall, both at approximately the same latitude BADI (also known as Cope Leveque) on the Western Australia coast, and KULUNGGUR (also known as Daintree) in Queensland. Their Aboriginal names are used here because they are direct links with the Dreaming: the way the cosmic process is conceived in this landscape by people who observed its pattern of change and prospered by conforming to the limitations it sets. The complex sustainable relationships of the Aboriginal peoples are expressed in Dreaming mythologies and celebrated in dances that, in Aboriginal experience, resonate with the rhythm of the cosmos, guaranteeing the continuity of life. Though multi‑cultural Australia cannot be expected to imitate an ancient culture generated in this landscape, it is all too obvious that the practices of the past two centuries cannot be sustained. Indeed, effort is now being made to adjust to the limitations of the landscape: to adopt relationships within it that will restore its capacity to sustain the fullness of life.
A culture that celebrates this landscape shall flourish when our roots are truly sunken into it. When we experience our cosmic significance in imagery that it generates in our unconscious and becomes our Dreaming.
There are two locations on the Australian coastline that sustain the highest rate of cyclonic landfall, both at approximately the same latitude BADI (also known as Cope Leveque) on the Western Australia coast, and KULUNGGUR (also known as Daintree) in Queensland. Their Aboriginal names are used here because they are direct links with the Dreaming: the way the cosmic process is conceived in this landscape by people who observed its pattern of change and prospered by conforming to the limitations it sets. The complex sustainable relationships of the Aboriginal peoples are expressed in Dreaming mythologies and celebrated in dances that, in Aboriginal experience, resonate with the rhythm of the cosmos, guaranteeing the continuity of life. Though multi‑cultural Australia cannot be expected to imitate an ancient culture generated in this landscape, it is all too obvious that the practices of the past two centuries cannot be sustained. Indeed, effort is now being made to adjust to the limitations of the landscape: to adopt relationships within it that will restore its capacity to sustain the fullness of life.
A culture that celebrates this landscape shall flourish when our roots are truly sunken into it. When we experience our cosmic significance in imagery that it generates in our unconscious and becomes our Dreaming.
Cyclone Dreaming 14 – El Nino; La Nina
El Nino; La Nina
Looking down the barrel of a mathematical model is like using a telescope and a microscope at the same time. It extends the limited capacity of our senses to see and feel the big picture and to recognise its inner structure. When modelling the relationship of ocean currents and the air above them a galaxy of numbers from vast areas of the earth, each representing heat and force that can be felt by the body, but only in one place at a time, are processed by computers that disclose something of the scale and structure of the energy exchange between ocean and sky. The observer "sees" and "feels" the whole event. S/he feels the cool water off the coast of Peru and the warmth of the Coral Sea and sees the sun driving the wind like a giant Ferris wheel over the equator, dropping down dry in the east, rushing west across the Pacific picking up water, and pouring it out over Australian and Asian landmasses. When s/he feels the eastern Pacific warming, lowering the pressure that forces the wind westward s/he knows that EL NINO will bring drought in Australia and Asia. And when LA NINA drives the temperature down off the Peruvian coast s/he knows that the big wet is coming in Australia. But because it doesn't always happen this way s/he feels the land, sea and sky continuously, watching for patterns in what s/he sees and feels, hoping for insight and understanding, and, occasionally, being drenched in wonder. At such moments the Poet s/he embodies addresses the wind and the ocean in person and hears their reply.
Perhaps, in time, s/he will know them as relatives who will share their family secrets ‑ their resonance of the cosmic dance – and respond to our performance of it.
Looking down the barrel of a mathematical model is like using a telescope and a microscope at the same time. It extends the limited capacity of our senses to see and feel the big picture and to recognise its inner structure. When modelling the relationship of ocean currents and the air above them a galaxy of numbers from vast areas of the earth, each representing heat and force that can be felt by the body, but only in one place at a time, are processed by computers that disclose something of the scale and structure of the energy exchange between ocean and sky. The observer "sees" and "feels" the whole event. S/he feels the cool water off the coast of Peru and the warmth of the Coral Sea and sees the sun driving the wind like a giant Ferris wheel over the equator, dropping down dry in the east, rushing west across the Pacific picking up water, and pouring it out over Australian and Asian landmasses. When s/he feels the eastern Pacific warming, lowering the pressure that forces the wind westward s/he knows that EL NINO will bring drought in Australia and Asia. And when LA NINA drives the temperature down off the Peruvian coast s/he knows that the big wet is coming in Australia. But because it doesn't always happen this way s/he feels the land, sea and sky continuously, watching for patterns in what s/he sees and feels, hoping for insight and understanding, and, occasionally, being drenched in wonder. At such moments the Poet s/he embodies addresses the wind and the ocean in person and hears their reply.
Perhaps, in time, s/he will know them as relatives who will share their family secrets ‑ their resonance of the cosmic dance – and respond to our performance of it.
Cyclone Dreaming 13 - Metsat
Metsat
When quantum theory is applied to obtain technological results, miracles occur. Satellites are launched into orbit to transmit prodigious amounts of data around the world. This awesome flux of information goes right over our heads as we place our bets at the TAB on races at the other end of the continent and collect payouts calculated by a central computer at the same rate for all winners, after the race has been seen as patches of light on screens all over the country. In a nearby office tension mounts as a duty officer watches a dark patch on another screen approaching an irregular line sloping downwards from left to right, with tiny dots to the left of it. This in itself could hardly account for the apprehension s/he feels. But what it represents is potentially tragic. High above the earth in stationary orbit METSAT, a satellite capable of watching and reporting the weather, has given the meteorologist eyes to see into the vortex of a tropical cyclone approaching the coastline, threatening tens of thousands of homes.
An involuntary gasp shapes itself into words addressed to no one in particular ‑ except, perhaps to the void represented by the dark patch on the screen: "Oh my god..."
When quantum theory is applied to obtain technological results, miracles occur. Satellites are launched into orbit to transmit prodigious amounts of data around the world. This awesome flux of information goes right over our heads as we place our bets at the TAB on races at the other end of the continent and collect payouts calculated by a central computer at the same rate for all winners, after the race has been seen as patches of light on screens all over the country. In a nearby office tension mounts as a duty officer watches a dark patch on another screen approaching an irregular line sloping downwards from left to right, with tiny dots to the left of it. This in itself could hardly account for the apprehension s/he feels. But what it represents is potentially tragic. High above the earth in stationary orbit METSAT, a satellite capable of watching and reporting the weather, has given the meteorologist eyes to see into the vortex of a tropical cyclone approaching the coastline, threatening tens of thousands of homes.
An involuntary gasp shapes itself into words addressed to no one in particular ‑ except, perhaps to the void represented by the dark patch on the screen: "Oh my god..."
Cyclone Dreaming 12 - Quon
Quon
The widely experienced and variously expressed intuition that all things and events are manifestations of one underlying reality is affirmed by Quantum Physics. The Quantum view of the Universe is of a single but infinitely diverse and ever changing whole, manifesting itself as an infinite number of identical particles, each of which is the whole, existing in a relationship with one another that gives each its identity and function. The particles, known by various names depending on how they are detected, are given the class name QUON. They change from one to another but only in a limited number of ways determined by the dynamics of the whole. Other kinds of change would destabilise the Universe. This echoes the awareness expressed in ancient philosophies that to know oneself from the perspective of the whole empowers one to live fully: to embrace the fundamental fact of change within the limitations set by the process of the cosmos. Quantum physics also affirms the no‑thingness of the Universe. Quons are not actually particles at all, but patterns of energy. In a very real sense the Universe is an illusion.
If I live in a hole and think that I can't change it, it may be that I expect what I cannot have. If I embrace the Whole my life will change, and I won't mind how.
The widely experienced and variously expressed intuition that all things and events are manifestations of one underlying reality is affirmed by Quantum Physics. The Quantum view of the Universe is of a single but infinitely diverse and ever changing whole, manifesting itself as an infinite number of identical particles, each of which is the whole, existing in a relationship with one another that gives each its identity and function. The particles, known by various names depending on how they are detected, are given the class name QUON. They change from one to another but only in a limited number of ways determined by the dynamics of the whole. Other kinds of change would destabilise the Universe. This echoes the awareness expressed in ancient philosophies that to know oneself from the perspective of the whole empowers one to live fully: to embrace the fundamental fact of change within the limitations set by the process of the cosmos. Quantum physics also affirms the no‑thingness of the Universe. Quons are not actually particles at all, but patterns of energy. In a very real sense the Universe is an illusion.
If I live in a hole and think that I can't change it, it may be that I expect what I cannot have. If I embrace the Whole my life will change, and I won't mind how.
Cyclone Dreaming 11 - Lolamai
Lolamai
Before the sun rises over the Pacific it has already scorched the desert land of northern Arizona. On the mesas, rocky flagships of the desert afloat on waters of sand, the Hopi trim their crops of blue corn, maintaining the bearing of their voyage through their cosmos, virtually unaffected by the catastrophic storm that for five centuries has devastated other Native Americans and their landscapes. The rainmaker scatters corn meal on the earth, gently, and gives the signal. The bowman shoots his arrow directly at the sun. It doesn't return. But the cloud people gather and the rain falls. The rainmaker exchanges the greeting with the bowman: LOLAMAI – all is wonderful.
The Hopi have made their home on the mesas for 1000 years – a landscape stripped by wind and rain of anything that people seeking wealth might covet. Yet there they learned to prosper, and when the Pawana (pale skins) come with inducements to change their way of life, they maintain it as a sacred trust knowing that in time even the Pawana will want to restore the balance that their way of life has destroyed.
Before the sun rises over the Pacific it has already scorched the desert land of northern Arizona. On the mesas, rocky flagships of the desert afloat on waters of sand, the Hopi trim their crops of blue corn, maintaining the bearing of their voyage through their cosmos, virtually unaffected by the catastrophic storm that for five centuries has devastated other Native Americans and their landscapes. The rainmaker scatters corn meal on the earth, gently, and gives the signal. The bowman shoots his arrow directly at the sun. It doesn't return. But the cloud people gather and the rain falls. The rainmaker exchanges the greeting with the bowman: LOLAMAI – all is wonderful.
The Hopi have made their home on the mesas for 1000 years – a landscape stripped by wind and rain of anything that people seeking wealth might covet. Yet there they learned to prosper, and when the Pawana (pale skins) come with inducements to change their way of life, they maintain it as a sacred trust knowing that in time even the Pawana will want to restore the balance that their way of life has destroyed.
Cyclone Dreaming 10 – Ta-Whiri-Ma-Tea
Ta-Whiri-Ma-Tea
In the Pacific, though there are several different cultures (Melanesian, Micronesian, and Polynesian to name but three of the broad groupings) there is a widely shared class of myth about the separation of the sky (father) from the earth (mother) by their offspring. In a Maori version, five of the six children (the progenitors of humanity, forests, cultivated food, fishes and reptiles, and wild grown food) collaborate in pushing the sky away from the earth. The wind TA‑WHIRI‑MA‑TEA, however, is opposed to his siblings’ actions and drives the fishes into the sea and lays waste the forest. The earth shelters both kinds of food. Only humanity withstands the fury of the wind, though not without casualties and fear. It is, of course, the very wind itself by which the oceanic peoples orient themselves in the world, naming the winds, not after the points of the compass, but according to their influence, and the points of the compass after the winds, which are differentiated into no fewer than thirty‑two distinct influences.
It would be very difficult to imagine a more intimate image of human prosperity generated by its engagement with a ‘cosmic adversary’.
In the Pacific, though there are several different cultures (Melanesian, Micronesian, and Polynesian to name but three of the broad groupings) there is a widely shared class of myth about the separation of the sky (father) from the earth (mother) by their offspring. In a Maori version, five of the six children (the progenitors of humanity, forests, cultivated food, fishes and reptiles, and wild grown food) collaborate in pushing the sky away from the earth. The wind TA‑WHIRI‑MA‑TEA, however, is opposed to his siblings’ actions and drives the fishes into the sea and lays waste the forest. The earth shelters both kinds of food. Only humanity withstands the fury of the wind, though not without casualties and fear. It is, of course, the very wind itself by which the oceanic peoples orient themselves in the world, naming the winds, not after the points of the compass, but according to their influence, and the points of the compass after the winds, which are differentiated into no fewer than thirty‑two distinct influences.
It would be very difficult to imagine a more intimate image of human prosperity generated by its engagement with a ‘cosmic adversary’.
Cyclone Dreaming 9 – Wu-Wei
Wu-Wei
The explicit reliance on intuitive knowledge as a source of wisdom is deeply embedded in Chinese culture. Its schools of philosophy are each in their own way concerned with life in society, human relations, moral values and government. The organisation of society the education of the young in particular ‑ reflects the strict conventions and etiquette of Confucianism. Yet the highest aim of Chinese philosophy is to reach beyond the things and events of the world and everyday life to a mystical union with the Universe. On this point, China ‑ practical, pragmatic and socially conscious ‑ is at one with India – imaginative, metaphysical and transcendental. But whereas Indian thought personifies the one underlying reality as Brahman, it is conceived in China as the impersonal process of the cosmos which manifests itself in observable patterns of life that nevertheless change spontaneously. It is known as the Tao or The Way. Human endeavour is not always consistent with The Way. Social organisation in particular resists spontaneity. Taoism therefore exists as a means of liberation from the world as it is made by strict rules and convention. Mistrust of conventional knowledge and reasoning is stronger in Taoism than in any other school of eastern philosophy.
Trusting our intuition, according to Taoism, enables us to observe and conform with the movements of the Tao. Such a disposition is called WU‑ WEI.
(Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics)
The explicit reliance on intuitive knowledge as a source of wisdom is deeply embedded in Chinese culture. Its schools of philosophy are each in their own way concerned with life in society, human relations, moral values and government. The organisation of society the education of the young in particular ‑ reflects the strict conventions and etiquette of Confucianism. Yet the highest aim of Chinese philosophy is to reach beyond the things and events of the world and everyday life to a mystical union with the Universe. On this point, China ‑ practical, pragmatic and socially conscious ‑ is at one with India – imaginative, metaphysical and transcendental. But whereas Indian thought personifies the one underlying reality as Brahman, it is conceived in China as the impersonal process of the cosmos which manifests itself in observable patterns of life that nevertheless change spontaneously. It is known as the Tao or The Way. Human endeavour is not always consistent with The Way. Social organisation in particular resists spontaneity. Taoism therefore exists as a means of liberation from the world as it is made by strict rules and convention. Mistrust of conventional knowledge and reasoning is stronger in Taoism than in any other school of eastern philosophy.
Trusting our intuition, according to Taoism, enables us to observe and conform with the movements of the Tao. Such a disposition is called WU‑ WEI.
(Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics)
Cyclone Dreaming 8 – Prajna; Kurana
Prajna; Kurana
The impermanence of things is recognised throughout Asia as the fundamental condition of the Universe. The inability to come to terms with this basic fact of life – the habit of clinging to or grasping at illusions – is seen as the cause of human suffering and frustration. Where there is no sense of the origin of impermanence in divine activity that also restores rest to the troubled, the mitigation of suffering is seen as a human imperative. This is said to be achieved by overcoming the point of view that creates self‑ interest by distinguishing between things thereby separating the self from the whole. The undivided nature of reality is grasped by direct mystical experience but not in concepts and ideas of the intellect. It is therefore called "the void" or emptiness ‑ (no thing). In practice this "right awareness" is arrived at by right meditation supported by and at the same time clarifying right seeing, knowing and action ‑ "right life style".
It is intuition PRAJNA ‑ that sees beyond the distinctions drown between things in the intellect. To shift one's focus from the self to the whole is an act of compassion – KURANA.
(Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics)
The impermanence of things is recognised throughout Asia as the fundamental condition of the Universe. The inability to come to terms with this basic fact of life – the habit of clinging to or grasping at illusions – is seen as the cause of human suffering and frustration. Where there is no sense of the origin of impermanence in divine activity that also restores rest to the troubled, the mitigation of suffering is seen as a human imperative. This is said to be achieved by overcoming the point of view that creates self‑ interest by distinguishing between things thereby separating the self from the whole. The undivided nature of reality is grasped by direct mystical experience but not in concepts and ideas of the intellect. It is therefore called "the void" or emptiness ‑ (no thing). In practice this "right awareness" is arrived at by right meditation supported by and at the same time clarifying right seeing, knowing and action ‑ "right life style".
It is intuition PRAJNA ‑ that sees beyond the distinctions drown between things in the intellect. To shift one's focus from the self to the whole is an act of compassion – KURANA.
(Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics)
Cyclone Dreaming 7 – Nataraja
Nataraja
On the Indian sub‑continent destruction and prosperity are not seen as contradictory fortunes but as contrasting aspects of NATARAJA: the dance of Shiva. It is said that the dance sends waves of awakening through inert matter, which comes to life as the myriad forms of the Universe. These forms are said to change as the dance changes. All matter and forms therefore are understood to be ever changing though they have the illusion of permanence. In the fullness of time the dance destroys all forms and names.
Through the activity of Nataraja, Brahman becomes the Universe, which in turn becomes Brahman again.
(Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics)
On the Indian sub‑continent destruction and prosperity are not seen as contradictory fortunes but as contrasting aspects of NATARAJA: the dance of Shiva. It is said that the dance sends waves of awakening through inert matter, which comes to life as the myriad forms of the Universe. These forms are said to change as the dance changes. All matter and forms therefore are understood to be ever changing though they have the illusion of permanence. In the fullness of time the dance destroys all forms and names.
Through the activity of Nataraja, Brahman becomes the Universe, which in turn becomes Brahman again.
(Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics)
Cyclone Dreaming 6 – Wandjina
Wandjina
In north western Australia the WANDJINA are renowned for the exceptional violence of their creative acts. They are depicted with no mouth. It is said that this is because they would otherwise cause perpetual flooding of the landscape. These two features are no doubt packed with significance for the initiated. They invite speculation by other interested observers to the effect that the violence may have been that of cyclones; and that there has been a change of climate in the region. In this regard it is interesting to note that since records have been kept no cyclone has ever made landfall along the three hundred kilometre coastline of the region.
Speculation aside, the mythology of the Wandjina whose awesome violence leaves a legacy of abundance is perhaps the oldest surviving form of the conviction that creativity and destructiveness are both necessary aspects of being.
In north western Australia the WANDJINA are renowned for the exceptional violence of their creative acts. They are depicted with no mouth. It is said that this is because they would otherwise cause perpetual flooding of the landscape. These two features are no doubt packed with significance for the initiated. They invite speculation by other interested observers to the effect that the violence may have been that of cyclones; and that there has been a change of climate in the region. In this regard it is interesting to note that since records have been kept no cyclone has ever made landfall along the three hundred kilometre coastline of the region.
Speculation aside, the mythology of the Wandjina whose awesome violence leaves a legacy of abundance is perhaps the oldest surviving form of the conviction that creativity and destructiveness are both necessary aspects of being.
CYCLONE DREAMING 5 – Vulnerability as Blessing Part II
Vulnerability as Blessing Part II
The perhaps second most intimate possible experience of vulnerability is the sight of one animal making another its prey, especially if the preyed upon has the means of making its attacker the victim of the encounter. Its very commitment to staying alive leads the predator to its own death if it does not succeed in killing its prey. It could be thought hardly surprising if, in such circumstances, a species that acquired a competitive edge in the struggle for existence, perhaps through the ability to reflect on its situation, responded with hostility to everything around it, developing habits of contempt with its growing power to assert itself in the landscape, to define anything it found a use for as a "resource", and to eliminate whole populations as "pests"! What is truly surprising, therefore, is the elegant relationships that human beings actually developed with their fellow creatures, most profoundly evident in the assurances given to a slaughtered animal, by those who hunt what they eat, that its death serves the life of others.
Such a gesture implies a conception of the world extending beyond the visible, and life as an aspect of being. The hunter Poets conceived of all living things as parts of a creator ancestor whose body also includes the landscape with its wind and rain, its sun moon stars and planets, all continually interacting together, all continually changing, merging and emerging. The role of human beings in this view of the world is to maintain the integrity of the world by performing its Increase Rites. Such a conception does not diminish the instinct for self-preservation. But it transcends the sense of vulnerability by embracing a sense of destiny understood not merely as the end point or culmination of life, but as the end (purpose) of life.
Reaching beyond what is apparent (such as the sun rising and setting over a landscape that, mountains and valleys not withstanding, is always flat as far as the eye can see) to convictions that have no obvious basis (such as the roundness of the Earth and its motion around the sun) is probably the single most important human characteristic. Without it there would be no culture ‑ no organisation of effort, and no technology of any kind. But if, as is assumed here, vulnerability is the primary human experience, then effort and technology focused upon the preservation of an organised group could be expected to function as a powerfully conservative force, serving the interests of those with a capacity to dominate the organisation, turning Strong Men into Generals and then into Kings or Emperors, and, even into gods. Social, political and religious orthodoxies, however, are vulnerable to radical insight and action.
The Poet, in courtier and stave alike, who knows the space in which s/he is invulnerable to all things also knows that no thing can be the source of lasting security or satisfaction, because no thing lasts. S/he reserves the option of not submitting totally to the necessity of what is apparent (the norms of society and the socially constructed ego) so that s/he can merge with the source of all things (with no‑thing) and dwell in the worth s/he experiences, and emerge empowered to endure the poverty of the relationships in which s/he is enmeshed, and, when the opportunity arises, to put pressure on those relationships to change.
The perhaps second most intimate possible experience of vulnerability is the sight of one animal making another its prey, especially if the preyed upon has the means of making its attacker the victim of the encounter. Its very commitment to staying alive leads the predator to its own death if it does not succeed in killing its prey. It could be thought hardly surprising if, in such circumstances, a species that acquired a competitive edge in the struggle for existence, perhaps through the ability to reflect on its situation, responded with hostility to everything around it, developing habits of contempt with its growing power to assert itself in the landscape, to define anything it found a use for as a "resource", and to eliminate whole populations as "pests"! What is truly surprising, therefore, is the elegant relationships that human beings actually developed with their fellow creatures, most profoundly evident in the assurances given to a slaughtered animal, by those who hunt what they eat, that its death serves the life of others.
Such a gesture implies a conception of the world extending beyond the visible, and life as an aspect of being. The hunter Poets conceived of all living things as parts of a creator ancestor whose body also includes the landscape with its wind and rain, its sun moon stars and planets, all continually interacting together, all continually changing, merging and emerging. The role of human beings in this view of the world is to maintain the integrity of the world by performing its Increase Rites. Such a conception does not diminish the instinct for self-preservation. But it transcends the sense of vulnerability by embracing a sense of destiny understood not merely as the end point or culmination of life, but as the end (purpose) of life.
Reaching beyond what is apparent (such as the sun rising and setting over a landscape that, mountains and valleys not withstanding, is always flat as far as the eye can see) to convictions that have no obvious basis (such as the roundness of the Earth and its motion around the sun) is probably the single most important human characteristic. Without it there would be no culture ‑ no organisation of effort, and no technology of any kind. But if, as is assumed here, vulnerability is the primary human experience, then effort and technology focused upon the preservation of an organised group could be expected to function as a powerfully conservative force, serving the interests of those with a capacity to dominate the organisation, turning Strong Men into Generals and then into Kings or Emperors, and, even into gods. Social, political and religious orthodoxies, however, are vulnerable to radical insight and action.
The Poet, in courtier and stave alike, who knows the space in which s/he is invulnerable to all things also knows that no thing can be the source of lasting security or satisfaction, because no thing lasts. S/he reserves the option of not submitting totally to the necessity of what is apparent (the norms of society and the socially constructed ego) so that s/he can merge with the source of all things (with no‑thing) and dwell in the worth s/he experiences, and emerge empowered to endure the poverty of the relationships in which s/he is enmeshed, and, when the opportunity arises, to put pressure on those relationships to change.
CYCLONE DREAMING 4 – Vulnerability as Blessing Part I
Vulnerability as Blessing Part I
Cyclones play an important part in our lives. Apart from the prosperity they bring through the rain that greens the landscape, they drive certain aspects of our technological and social development. When they blow away our homes we find ways to make them more durable. We track cyclones with satellites and radar. And we devise community strategies for coping when they come. The media keeps us informed and in a very important sense draws us together: when we hear the pulsing warning signal on our radios we know that we are all focused at that moment on the awesome uncertainty of the approaching event.
Such moments are opportunities for the Poet in each of us to reach beyond the event at hand. This we do in any case through the shared hope of being spared ‑ of being the same after the event as before it. But the Poet knows that everything changes even when it appears to stay the same, and in such critical moments reaches for the benefit that change can bring to our lives and actively embraces it. In so doing s/he celebrates our vulnerability.
Celebrating our vulnerability may seem like a strange suggestion to make, but only if we ignore what is really quite normal activity. In Australia, for example, the one day of the year that can be described as a truly national holiday celebrates an experience of devastating vulnerability. On ANZAC day we continue to discover more about ourselves through our annual remembrance of the events at Gallipoli. The Poet is drawn by such events into the single continuous field of meaning in which words and the things they signify exist, not as hard edged and immutable forms, but as resonances of the mind, neither separate nor permanent, but merging and emerging as new forms, shaping and being reshaped by the minds they flow through. The Poet merges with the event and emerges with a sign that effects what it signifies: a constellation of words that evoke the experience, not of the event but of the field of meaning ‑ the Universe ‑ as It unfolds in that event. Such activity has roots reaching back as far into human history as it is possible to imagine.
AS well as ANZAC day, for example, the two focal points of our year ‑ public holidays when the nation stops work for more than just a day and turns its efforts to making merry ‑ have their roots in celebrations that arise out of a sense of vulnerability. Easter has its origins in festivals of the Vernal Equinox celebrating the death and rebirth of the annual cycle of seasonal life. Christmas coincides with a much older festival dating back to Palaeolithic times, celebrating the passing of the Northern Winter Solstice – after which the days begin to lengthen and, in ages past, the chance of surviving for another season also increased.
Hoping to be spared the worst that the chaos of winter – or a cyclone hovering off shore – might inflict is a natural response to vulnerability. It reflects our instinct for self-preservation. But it is a passive and ultimately futile disposition, for we have learned from our experience of the landscapes in which we have taken root, that the continuity of life is maintained by the destruction of all living things. Aroused by the same instinct, the Poet in each of us takes the initiative and discovers a "space" in our lives which can be touched by no thing: in which we know our intrinsic worth and our ultimate invulnerability to all things.
Cyclones play an important part in our lives. Apart from the prosperity they bring through the rain that greens the landscape, they drive certain aspects of our technological and social development. When they blow away our homes we find ways to make them more durable. We track cyclones with satellites and radar. And we devise community strategies for coping when they come. The media keeps us informed and in a very important sense draws us together: when we hear the pulsing warning signal on our radios we know that we are all focused at that moment on the awesome uncertainty of the approaching event.
Such moments are opportunities for the Poet in each of us to reach beyond the event at hand. This we do in any case through the shared hope of being spared ‑ of being the same after the event as before it. But the Poet knows that everything changes even when it appears to stay the same, and in such critical moments reaches for the benefit that change can bring to our lives and actively embraces it. In so doing s/he celebrates our vulnerability.
Celebrating our vulnerability may seem like a strange suggestion to make, but only if we ignore what is really quite normal activity. In Australia, for example, the one day of the year that can be described as a truly national holiday celebrates an experience of devastating vulnerability. On ANZAC day we continue to discover more about ourselves through our annual remembrance of the events at Gallipoli. The Poet is drawn by such events into the single continuous field of meaning in which words and the things they signify exist, not as hard edged and immutable forms, but as resonances of the mind, neither separate nor permanent, but merging and emerging as new forms, shaping and being reshaped by the minds they flow through. The Poet merges with the event and emerges with a sign that effects what it signifies: a constellation of words that evoke the experience, not of the event but of the field of meaning ‑ the Universe ‑ as It unfolds in that event. Such activity has roots reaching back as far into human history as it is possible to imagine.
AS well as ANZAC day, for example, the two focal points of our year ‑ public holidays when the nation stops work for more than just a day and turns its efforts to making merry ‑ have their roots in celebrations that arise out of a sense of vulnerability. Easter has its origins in festivals of the Vernal Equinox celebrating the death and rebirth of the annual cycle of seasonal life. Christmas coincides with a much older festival dating back to Palaeolithic times, celebrating the passing of the Northern Winter Solstice – after which the days begin to lengthen and, in ages past, the chance of surviving for another season also increased.
Hoping to be spared the worst that the chaos of winter – or a cyclone hovering off shore – might inflict is a natural response to vulnerability. It reflects our instinct for self-preservation. But it is a passive and ultimately futile disposition, for we have learned from our experience of the landscapes in which we have taken root, that the continuity of life is maintained by the destruction of all living things. Aroused by the same instinct, the Poet in each of us takes the initiative and discovers a "space" in our lives which can be touched by no thing: in which we know our intrinsic worth and our ultimate invulnerability to all things.
Cyclone Dreaming 3: Tropical Cyclone Advice
TOP PRIORITY CYCLONE ADVICE
ISSUED BY THE BUREAU OF MYTHOLOGY
AT ONE SECOND TO MIDNIGHT ON
TROPICAL CYCLONE DREAMING
Profound Tropical Cyclone Dreaming with a deep core measured at 40,000 Quons is located over the Australian mainland, with counter ideological gusts extending radical influences across the entire Asia Pacific region.
Extensive structural damage is occurring in all parts of the Eastern Hemisphere. The Soviet Block has been swept into history, and the People's Republic of China has sustained minor changes to its economic system, but is attempting to secure itself against further impact. There are confused reports from Fiji; and other Pacific Nations are nervously awaiting developments.
Cyclone Dreaming has set the tigers loose in East Asia, and closer to Australia it has caused extreme difficulty on the islands of Bouganville and Timore. New Zealand is at the point of collapse under the strain of measures taken to counter the effects of Cyclone Dreaming. Norfolk and Pitcan Islands have succeeded in isolating themselves from all knowledge of current conditions.
Cyclone Dreaming is showing a tendency to contract over the Australian mainland bringing gale force instability to the off shore island of Tasmania. Coastal areas of the mainland are also reporting early signs of impact.
If present trends continue Cyclone Dreaming will contract northward to a singularity over KAMBURE leaving a shallow depression, which is expected to join with ongoing equatorial instability, resulting in a prolonged period of prosperity flowing from the Monsoonal Trough.
ISSUED BY THE BUREAU OF MYTHOLOGY
AT ONE SECOND TO MIDNIGHT ON
TROPICAL CYCLONE DREAMING
Profound Tropical Cyclone Dreaming with a deep core measured at 40,000 Quons is located over the Australian mainland, with counter ideological gusts extending radical influences across the entire Asia Pacific region.
Extensive structural damage is occurring in all parts of the Eastern Hemisphere. The Soviet Block has been swept into history, and the People's Republic of China has sustained minor changes to its economic system, but is attempting to secure itself against further impact. There are confused reports from Fiji; and other Pacific Nations are nervously awaiting developments.
Cyclone Dreaming has set the tigers loose in East Asia, and closer to Australia it has caused extreme difficulty on the islands of Bouganville and Timore. New Zealand is at the point of collapse under the strain of measures taken to counter the effects of Cyclone Dreaming. Norfolk and Pitcan Islands have succeeded in isolating themselves from all knowledge of current conditions.
Cyclone Dreaming is showing a tendency to contract over the Australian mainland bringing gale force instability to the off shore island of Tasmania. Coastal areas of the mainland are also reporting early signs of impact.
If present trends continue Cyclone Dreaming will contract northward to a singularity over KAMBURE leaving a shallow depression, which is expected to join with ongoing equatorial instability, resulting in a prolonged period of prosperity flowing from the Monsoonal Trough.
Cyclone Dreaming 2 - The Celebration of Cyclone Dreaming
The Celebration of Cyclone Dreaming
Like Wandjina dreaming, cyclones erupt in space-time, wander erratically, wreaking havoc, and vanish, as unpredictably as they appear, leaving a legacy of abundance: the rain that nurtures our prosperity.
In eras long gone we sought refuge in the hope of divine intervention from the uncertainty and fear of cyclones and the slow pitiful tragedy of drought. In these less poetic times we face the fury and the pity alone, stripped, by a storm of our own making, of any sense of relationship with, or responsibility for, the Earth and the Cosmos beyond.
Like the paradoxical legacy of cyclones, however, the aftermath of the meteoric turbulence of scientific discovery, that shattered and scattered the sacral habits of tens of thousands of years, is a new era of sustainable prosperity, reflecting the recovery of our sense of relationship within the Cosmos, and a new sense of Mystery – the latter mediated by mathematics, but possessing the qualities of poetry.
We are not, it seems, mere objects in the Universe, but unique personal manifestations of the One, undivided yet infinitely diverse, Whole. The dancing Brolga and the flowering Kapoc are indeed our relatives, and our consciousness is intimately implicated, not only in their destiny and that of the Earth, but also in the very way that the planet – indeed, the Universe itself – exists.
What, then, are we to make of the efforts of those who danced the rain in dry season? Did they know, by the power of poetry, how to live in a mutually co-operative relationship with the elements? Is that relationship still accessible by the same means? What might be swept away, should we discover, by the fusion of poetry and mathematics, that the relationship between cyclones and the El Nino (the bringer of drought) is not a one way street, and that we have the power to influence it?
Dare we hope for Cyclone Dreaming to keep our relatives prosperous?
Like Wandjina dreaming, cyclones erupt in space-time, wander erratically, wreaking havoc, and vanish, as unpredictably as they appear, leaving a legacy of abundance: the rain that nurtures our prosperity.
In eras long gone we sought refuge in the hope of divine intervention from the uncertainty and fear of cyclones and the slow pitiful tragedy of drought. In these less poetic times we face the fury and the pity alone, stripped, by a storm of our own making, of any sense of relationship with, or responsibility for, the Earth and the Cosmos beyond.
Like the paradoxical legacy of cyclones, however, the aftermath of the meteoric turbulence of scientific discovery, that shattered and scattered the sacral habits of tens of thousands of years, is a new era of sustainable prosperity, reflecting the recovery of our sense of relationship within the Cosmos, and a new sense of Mystery – the latter mediated by mathematics, but possessing the qualities of poetry.
We are not, it seems, mere objects in the Universe, but unique personal manifestations of the One, undivided yet infinitely diverse, Whole. The dancing Brolga and the flowering Kapoc are indeed our relatives, and our consciousness is intimately implicated, not only in their destiny and that of the Earth, but also in the very way that the planet – indeed, the Universe itself – exists.
What, then, are we to make of the efforts of those who danced the rain in dry season? Did they know, by the power of poetry, how to live in a mutually co-operative relationship with the elements? Is that relationship still accessible by the same means? What might be swept away, should we discover, by the fusion of poetry and mathematics, that the relationship between cyclones and the El Nino (the bringer of drought) is not a one way street, and that we have the power to influence it?
Dare we hope for Cyclone Dreaming to keep our relatives prosperous?
Cyclone Dreaming 1 – INTRODUCTION
Here is my meditation on the (potential) role of cyclones in our lives. There are a number of things I want to say by way of introduction. Firstly, it is in several parts – it does not read from beginning to end in the same voice.
We start of by jumping straight into the deep end with the prose poem The Celebration of Cyclone Dreaming. It’s the next post, and already posted under What about climate change then, but it’s repeated here in the interests of completeness for this work. It was the first thing that its intended audience saw. It was on the back of the menu in our restaurant for several weeks in 1995; and for the Bureau of Meteorology golf tournament in Townsville in 1996. So I recommend that you read it first.
That is followed by a pamphlet made for interpreting the names in the menu itself. I should explain here that it was our practice to make themes for all of our menus, the names of which celebrated people places and events in the local landscape. Local is a word that can mean many things. In this case, local is not only Northern Australia (Cyclone Country), but many places on the Earth with which a connection is established by the point of view taken in the meditative process. It is the point of view in which our locality is the Universe, by virtue of the fact that each of us is the Universe.
The first part of the pamphlet, a Tropical Cyclone Advice such as you might hear on the radio, takes the point made in the prose poem into the realm of geo-politics. It is meant to be light hearted – to show that the deep and meaningful tone of what follows is not the last – or even the first – word to be uttered. If you get through the prose poem you may well need some light relief to come back to. But if you don’t manage to finish the long meditation that follows, you’ve got the essential point in opening skit.
That brings us to the Main Course. We welcomed you with an aperitif – the literary equivalent of a good strong drink – or a joint – to get you into the right head space. Then we brought you to the mood of celebration by providing an amusing little entrée. And now that we are in a state of at-one-ment through our shared laughter, we can enter together into the somewhat more serious, and hopefully more satisfying, business of taking substance and transforming it into ourselves – of trans-substantiation.
The next two parts introduces the theme of vulnerability and our response to it – specifically, the notion that by embracing our vulnerability we prosper.
Then comes apiece on a character which shares top billing with cyclones – the Wandjina, which, like cyclones, is not limited to one manifestation.
The next few parts highlight similarities in the disposition towards vulnerability developed in various parts of the planet – India, China, the Pacific and Meso America.
There is then a bridge that connects the forgoing to modern science, specifically, Quantum Physics, in which startling similarities can be seen with ancient intuitive forms of thought.
Science, at its cutting edge enunciates a paradox that itself is the gateway to Mystery. Yet it provides us with the means of penetrating the physical nature of cyclones.
That leads on, finally to the explicit elucidation of Cyclone Dreaming as both Name and Process (as Yahweh is both the Name and Nature of the Hebrew God) in terms that reconnect with the context of the Wandjina.
Clear? No. I didn’t think so. But then, it wouldn’t be a meditation if it were, would it?
We start of by jumping straight into the deep end with the prose poem The Celebration of Cyclone Dreaming. It’s the next post, and already posted under What about climate change then, but it’s repeated here in the interests of completeness for this work. It was the first thing that its intended audience saw. It was on the back of the menu in our restaurant for several weeks in 1995; and for the Bureau of Meteorology golf tournament in Townsville in 1996. So I recommend that you read it first.
That is followed by a pamphlet made for interpreting the names in the menu itself. I should explain here that it was our practice to make themes for all of our menus, the names of which celebrated people places and events in the local landscape. Local is a word that can mean many things. In this case, local is not only Northern Australia (Cyclone Country), but many places on the Earth with which a connection is established by the point of view taken in the meditative process. It is the point of view in which our locality is the Universe, by virtue of the fact that each of us is the Universe.
The first part of the pamphlet, a Tropical Cyclone Advice such as you might hear on the radio, takes the point made in the prose poem into the realm of geo-politics. It is meant to be light hearted – to show that the deep and meaningful tone of what follows is not the last – or even the first – word to be uttered. If you get through the prose poem you may well need some light relief to come back to. But if you don’t manage to finish the long meditation that follows, you’ve got the essential point in opening skit.
That brings us to the Main Course. We welcomed you with an aperitif – the literary equivalent of a good strong drink – or a joint – to get you into the right head space. Then we brought you to the mood of celebration by providing an amusing little entrée. And now that we are in a state of at-one-ment through our shared laughter, we can enter together into the somewhat more serious, and hopefully more satisfying, business of taking substance and transforming it into ourselves – of trans-substantiation.
The next two parts introduces the theme of vulnerability and our response to it – specifically, the notion that by embracing our vulnerability we prosper.
Then comes apiece on a character which shares top billing with cyclones – the Wandjina, which, like cyclones, is not limited to one manifestation.
The next few parts highlight similarities in the disposition towards vulnerability developed in various parts of the planet – India, China, the Pacific and Meso America.
There is then a bridge that connects the forgoing to modern science, specifically, Quantum Physics, in which startling similarities can be seen with ancient intuitive forms of thought.
Science, at its cutting edge enunciates a paradox that itself is the gateway to Mystery. Yet it provides us with the means of penetrating the physical nature of cyclones.
That leads on, finally to the explicit elucidation of Cyclone Dreaming as both Name and Process (as Yahweh is both the Name and Nature of the Hebrew God) in terms that reconnect with the context of the Wandjina.
Clear? No. I didn’t think so. But then, it wouldn’t be a meditation if it were, would it?
Thursday, 3 May 2007
A deliberately barren case
No case to answer
Have you shared my feeling that the attack by the government and the big end of town on the opposition’s IR policy lacks substance? Can there be any doubt about this after the government's response to Senator Heffernan’s latest outrage? The Senator said that Julia Gillard, the main proponent of the opposition’s IR policy, is deliberately barren and therefore unsuitable for high office. What do government members not like about this foul mouthed utterance? Firstly and most importantly, it was simply unacceptable for anyone to say such a thing about someone else. So far so good. But then! But then!! They reveal another motive for their displeasure with their colleague: it has blunted their attack on the opposition’s IR policies. Hello? A vicious personal remark has blunted their case against an opposition policy? How is this possible? If the case against the policy consists of sound reasoning, the validity of that reasoning cannot be diminished by remarks that are irrelevant to the debate. The only way that the Senator’s remarks can have blunted their case is that their case is deliberately barren - there is no case to answer.
Have you shared my feeling that the attack by the government and the big end of town on the opposition’s IR policy lacks substance? Can there be any doubt about this after the government's response to Senator Heffernan’s latest outrage? The Senator said that Julia Gillard, the main proponent of the opposition’s IR policy, is deliberately barren and therefore unsuitable for high office. What do government members not like about this foul mouthed utterance? Firstly and most importantly, it was simply unacceptable for anyone to say such a thing about someone else. So far so good. But then! But then!! They reveal another motive for their displeasure with their colleague: it has blunted their attack on the opposition’s IR policies. Hello? A vicious personal remark has blunted their case against an opposition policy? How is this possible? If the case against the policy consists of sound reasoning, the validity of that reasoning cannot be diminished by remarks that are irrelevant to the debate. The only way that the Senator’s remarks can have blunted their case is that their case is deliberately barren - there is no case to answer.
Business as usual: not an option
Barefaced deception and a naked gamble
One thing John Howard has done for us by being so hysterical about alternatives to coal and nuclear is to demonstrate that business as usual is not an option. Actually, before going any further, I would like to make the very important point that Howard’s position is actually the alternative. The need for renewable energy is so obvious that Howard’s vociferous insistence on coal and nuclear to the total exclusion of renewables is exposed for what it is far more compellingly than if had conceded a role for renewables. In fact, a role for renewables is precisely the position of everyone who backs them. No one has ever suggested that renewables are the only option. Howard has fatally overplayed his hand by misrepresenting the supporters of renewables – by saying that they propose a base load role for renewables. What renewables can do is significantly reduce the role of coal – not abolish it. And by crying wolf about Australian jobs if less coal is used he is hoping that people will not remember that every new technology has produced more jobs – not less. Jobs are going off shore right now: the development of renewable power technology. Howard’s naked gamble on clean coal and nuclear demonstrates the unviability of business as usual as nothing else could. The interests of the big end of town are shown to be such a threat to the future of the planet that we simply cannot allow them to get their way. Theirs is the alternative interest – the alternative to a sustainable future. Business as usual is not an option.
One thing John Howard has done for us by being so hysterical about alternatives to coal and nuclear is to demonstrate that business as usual is not an option. Actually, before going any further, I would like to make the very important point that Howard’s position is actually the alternative. The need for renewable energy is so obvious that Howard’s vociferous insistence on coal and nuclear to the total exclusion of renewables is exposed for what it is far more compellingly than if had conceded a role for renewables. In fact, a role for renewables is precisely the position of everyone who backs them. No one has ever suggested that renewables are the only option. Howard has fatally overplayed his hand by misrepresenting the supporters of renewables – by saying that they propose a base load role for renewables. What renewables can do is significantly reduce the role of coal – not abolish it. And by crying wolf about Australian jobs if less coal is used he is hoping that people will not remember that every new technology has produced more jobs – not less. Jobs are going off shore right now: the development of renewable power technology. Howard’s naked gamble on clean coal and nuclear demonstrates the unviability of business as usual as nothing else could. The interests of the big end of town are shown to be such a threat to the future of the planet that we simply cannot allow them to get their way. Theirs is the alternative interest – the alternative to a sustainable future. Business as usual is not an option.
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