community and stuff
the last little while i’ve been thinking about community. not very original but it continues to occupy my mind. my ruminations came from a range of things. I have been singing in asanta sana (a community choir that is run by a friend of ours in Alice springs during winter). we sing african justice songs and last week we finished our gigs with a presentation in trephina gorge which ryan was able to see. the thing that hits me about choirs is that it is actually an experience of community and team work without competition. now i’m not opposed to a bit of competition on the sports field ( eg hawthorn winning the grand final hopefully followed by manly doing the same thing next week to make it the perfect year) but teamwork in the sporting context comes out of conflict. in a choir teamwork comes out of harmony across all members. when you nail it its hard to think of anything better.
i was talking with stella about an ant column that came into our kitchen from the front door across the living room, across the kitchen, up the leg across the bench and then into a honey bottle where the lid had been left open. how do they do that. pretty teamy and co-operative.
davids woods told me a similar story of ants coming from his front fence down to the swimming pool for water (about 400metres). It was a two lane highway with one group going to the water the other group returning home. each of those ants we see as insignificant and by almost any critical definition are insignificant yet what they do as a team is extraordinary.
spending time with our aboriginal friend john and listening to stories handed to him that had been handed to his father before him and before him for thousands of years. the individual is there to maintain the continuity. we can enjoy his personal qualities as an individual but he is also part of something much bigger than himself. thats why its so important for him to keep telling teh stories. its so easy to see that as nicely quaint yet its so deeply important for a shared future.
the thing i like about all of this is that each individual is actually important but only in the context of the whole.
on another front i am conscious of so many of you guys wrestling with where and what life is asking of you and how you should respond. as i think of that i also feel like you are all really advanced in this process of self organising systems. its probably why you are all at such pains because you are wrestling with something that isnt neat or prescribed. in this world view the next step isnt apparent until it needs to be made. the questions come as you make a step, then you need to make a decsion to make the next step. if you make a mistake you’ll have to adjust or readjust. if you make a good decision you’ll still have to adjust or readjust to the ever changing circumstances.
One of the people speaking at the desert knowledge symposium which i am helping to organise talks about self organising systems. she puts this all together in a more carefully argued case that you might find helpful
http://www.margaretwheatley.com/articles/unplannedorganization.html
the link above is not hyperlinking like it should but i think its a good read for people wrestling with issues of future, call and confusion. no answers mind you just thoughts.
anyway I watch you guys all wrestle and i have to say you all inspire me.
Filed under Uncategorized | Comment (0)flappers in the desert
well I also wanted to write something about our wonderful trip through arrente country. so many things like teh sharing your life with the same people for a week, meal in meal out, camping under the big sky, the sheer amazement of the beauty of this land. Its strange how this land seems to take you over and seep in to your bones to teh point where I marvel at almost everything. i still want to go a water teh trees I see dying but stella keeps sayomng thats a bit silly in the desert. is till think a little help wouldn’t go astray to help the little battlers stay alive a bit longer. I coudl also talk about Unyime (meaning wise man) who led us through hos land as others have talked about.
but one thing that was really interesting was that there were a couple of days where i really needed hannah. you see there were a couple of days where the flys of the desert had the upper hand and its fair to say we all struggled a bit. we all tried different ways of keeping the flies at bay or learning to live with them.
interestingly i was thinking we cant really complain to Unyime because flies dont really worry him and he’ll just see how pathetic as white fellas are. but not this wise man. he just started to work out strategies to get us away from the flies so we’d be ok. he is a very nice wise man.
anyway back to the story. I needed to come up with my short term fly eradicator. Some went for the Bhurka style head gear, others went for a curtain of plants hanging off their head. none seemed to be just quite right for me. i decided to get a flapper. funny thing is i did all the things hannah does (with the exception of her breaking the main stem as her final test for suitability which i still dont fully understand - my best guess is if it breaks it doesnt have the correct reflex characteristics) but here i was pulling a branch off the tree give it a couple of flaps, if it doesn’t feel balanced in the hand you just know its not gunna be a good flapper so ge rid of it there and then. if it passes that test i then found myself pulling off surplus stems to make the whole unit more flippy. i just felt like hannah and just soooo wished we had been doing it together because she could have given me some fine tips. its amazing how much more satisfying and effective a well balanced flapper is. a couple of times i put a good one down and then i’d go looking for it because getting another good one takes quite a bit of careful research. hannah’s a bit of a wise girl i decided. she’d be fin eout in the
desert.
great trip,
Filed under Uncategorized | Comment (0)Moses in the Desert
I am slowly regaining my energy after our desert journey last week. Keith and I managed to organise our neighbour, John to lead 11 of us through his country east of Alice. John is an Eastern Arrente man and he knows his country well. He shared with us many of the stories about the land and his knowledge about bush foods and bush medicines and where to find water. One day John took us to a bunch of ordinary looking rocks and lifted off a small rock on top of another and there was water underneath. We all were reminded of Moses striking the rock in the desert and there was water. John’s people call the place a name that means “crying baby” because in their story the ancestors found the water by following the sound of a crying baby. It was such an enormous privlege to be shown the land by this man who so generously shared stories and knowledges handed down to him that have been handed down over thousands of years. I am still amazed that somehow it all came together and happened. There were a lot of unperedictable and uncontrollable variables in a trip like this which certainly causes some anxiety when you are organising such a thing. I did not get enough sleep for a while. But I am now recovered and boy was it worth it!