22 Fall Week7 Nature

    Click here for MaryMargaret Halsey's beautiful personal story of "Nature"

Thanks for your writing gift.

For a Christmas gift, Ian gave his step-mother-in-law an essay he had written about walking, biking and canoeing in and around the Nornalup/Walpole inlets.  It brought back memories of her childhood to Elaine.

Karri forest

27^thJan 2019

Dear Ian,

Made a mess of all I wished to tell you in thanks for your Christmas gift, your writing gift.

So euphoric for me.

Crowea

From Manjimup to Tinglewood Lodge when my first ride through the old road – crowea in full bloom and karri trees sheltering on either side. Do you have an email address? My mind slips away to all the memories.

Elaine, her sister and her brother, 1941

The later years as we grew older and Dad had an outboard motor. Across the inlet to what is a national park now. My father's friends made a summer campsite and we were able to book our time each year. Swimming, fishing. Herring mostly and a smouldering fire to smoke them to take home with us.

Ron's Camp

Later from my school in Manjimup. We hired a boat from Swarbricks. Picnic on the inlet and on our return Mr Swarbrick cut the engine and one of our teachers, with a beautiful voice, sang 'Oh, Danny Boy'. The banks on either side so close to us as we drifted. The last year for me. My mother very ill and my sister and I went to board with the Mercy Nuns in Bunbury. When my mother's health did not improve we finished our education at Santa Maria College. A very hard time for us.

Years passed and when our children were teenagers my brother bought a small farm on a road north of Walpole. My sister and our children, also his, spent the summer school holidays there. A small creek tumbling down and through. A few cows and back to paradise.

Had a break now and then from family and found a track north to a point where water tumbled down over and through fallen logs and rocks. My favourite place to sit and rest and watch the movement of the water.

On another day found a small path frequently used.  Climbed up and when at the top, high above the karri trees, a view east, west and round. Summer time and bushes with flowers. A rock to sit awhile.

Then down and back to my brother's farm. Meals and children and a patient old horse to ride.

Story book memories.

Now no longer in the family. However my sister and I loved all of that time.

So, thank you Ian.

Did I ever speak to you of any of this time?

I have read what you gave me more than once. You have a fantastic skill.

Happy New Year.

My love to you,

Elaine

Sanity and Solace

—by ELIZABETH DODSON GRAY
The politics intensify and the clamor of campaigning grows louder as we head toward November 2nd. Where do we turn for sanity?

And as the news of home invasion murders and the Rutgers suicide from cyber-bullying fill our newspapers and television news, where do we go for a glimpse of goodness and normalcy?
 
It reminds me of the Kingston Trio song of yesteryear, "They’re rioting in Africa,/ They’re starving in Spain,/ There’s hurricanes in Florida,/ And Texas needs rain./ The whole world is festering. . . ."

Jon Stewart got it right on Comedy Central. "Where do we go for sanity?"
 
As summer turns to autumn, you could think that the only thing happening is politics and campaigning.

But look around you. What is really, REALLY happening is that the natural seasons are TURNING on their deeply habitual but daily spontaneous way from warm to cold temperatures, from green leaves to gloriously multicolor splendor spread out on the trees we scarcely notice when they are green.
 
In a world becoming more uncertain each year with earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes and other EXTREME weather (which used to be unusual but has now become commonplace), there is still SOMETHING regular and steady and "normal" and "good" in our lives. It is our human context WITHIN the natural world of our planet’s biospheral cycles.

We are ENCIRCLED by the steadiness and the goodness of nature, made vivid even to our "unseeing" eyes, by the turning of the seasons.

No matter who gets elected, no matter who- kills-who in international wars and drive-by shootings, the sun will still rise. And the day will begin. And the season will turn from summer to autumn. And we will be blessed by the abundance of the earth UNTIL in our infinite human hubris and our blind technologies, we figure out a way to kill the planet!
  
But until then, open your eyes and open up your soul, to rejoice in the wonder and the blessing of the turning of the seasons. The natural seasons may possess the sanity and the solace we all need. 

—Elizabeth Dodson Gray