Astrological Stories and Myths for a Modern Age – at Wisdom in the Land .

As the creative director of bluecray, I would like to tell you more about myself and my journey for  Wisdom in the Land. I gained a Bachelor of Applied Science, majoring in natural landscape management,  plant strategies for survival, roadside vegetation management and habitat restoration, relating in particular to human activities and their interactions with natural landscapes, mid ’80′s.

After that?  Post graduate work in Aboriginal education, pesticide application technology & safety,  landscape architecture. I was also  teaching and coordinating community environmental activites, sitting on advisory committees and creating innovative community projects with others (as well as a rather exhausting stint at environmental activism). Finally I came to these realisations:-

• Whilst Australia is full of caring, hardworking environmentally aware people, there still remains many mainstream sustained myths about the value of nature’s biodiverse garden (earth).

• Many young people today have much information thrown at them via the media, corporate hype, political rhetoric and peer pressure. To simply live within the parameters of  nature’s balances is a hard task for many.

• Our sustained myths about what is required for a full and meaningful life is based on economic propagandas and social expectations. These myths actively foster consumerism and hedonistic behaviours at the expense of the planet’s health, biodiversity resilience and dynamic life processes.

• To live a simple life in a sharing and loving way is not honoured by our leaders of society and industry. Our children are being fed stories that there is a value and righteousness in striving for wealth of property, possessions and personal power.

Archetypal “demons” abound and simple grace has been swept out our humble abode’s door to be replaced with a multiplicity of sociopathic obsessive drives to “own”, “control”, “deny” and “destroy”.
Science and industry have basically reeled us in hook line and sinker. And as they reel us in, we bring with us a sad, toxic mess of waste, poison, useless possessions, extinct species and destroyed habitats. This coats us all.
Our collective focus is on destruction (be it often in the name of healing and “growth”) instead of joy, love, sharing and caring for our children’s future – their country, their skies, their waterways.

Industry and corporate greed has a face, so carefully hidden,  that it is a sick secret, chronically denied by wealthy “corporate and political” gamesmanship.

Have  compassion here for those less fortunate – those people who are dragging us into extinction – those people who, at the expense of biodiverse health, spend their life weaving more and more denial into their complex lifestyles as their ego slowly eats up their spiritual credibility and worth.
Individual champions who work , often without realising it, to alert us to these issues and who have lived simple spiritually worthy lives are few and far between.  Mostly, we follow blindly, falling prey to that human condition so well known to many Australians -
“she’ll be right, mate”.
Well, “SHE” is NOT right. “SHE” is very sick. The parallel of the collective earth to the individual human health condition is astounding.

• We fill our lungs with toxic fumes just as we fill the earth “breath” with the same.

• We clothe ourselves with functionless adornments just as we adorn our society and lifestyles with functionless “stuff”.

• Our inner organic systems of liver, heart, arteries and colons  are as choked as our wetlands, habitats, waterways,  and estuarine systems.

• Our skins and bones brittle, diseased and ill as are our soils, infrastructures and urban expansions.

• Our minds have become narrow, hollow and depressed just as our biodiversity has become thinned, weakened and sad.

• Our irrational minds, bent on extremities of lust, hate, greed, glory and imbalance are as extreme as the weather patterns that  greet each day. All the while our precious blue earth turns in space.

Individual responsibility has packed it’s bags and gone on holiday to that beautiful River flowing through Eqypt -  whilst corporate and political responsibility frantically creates more holiday destinations for our ego’s diversion.
Yet each day,  the world turns. Each day, I see in the life outside my door incredible beauty, complex balances and eons old life forces trying to recreate themselves with the best tools they have – adaption, resourcefulness, grace and steady tenaciousness.
Sometimes  -   Grace, that powerful gift from our one true GOD is not enough.
Sometimes, we must go further than Grace. We must stand our ground, walk our talk and summon reality with it’s consequences to that great tribunal, TIME.
And sometimes, TIME’s tribunal catches up with US.

The Sea, Belongil Beach, Byron Bay, Time and then…….?

Well, TIME always catches up – as it is an ever present constant in our human condition here in on our dear blue planet.
And time, my friends, whilst one of the biggest illusions of all, is there to show us exactly who we are.
It is a great mirror in a hall of mirrors, and every frame of existence is there, for all to see.
And whilst we, the great masters of humanity move “forward”, time is there from beginning to end.
To echo the words of John Keel, “the universe does not exist as we think it exists, and we don’t exist as we think we exist”
Much of my life I have been gifted with visions. Travelling beyond time, through the eons I have  watched many events and processes, both past , present and future. I have been beckoned by both the “devil’s” gifts of abundance and “God’s” gifts of abundance. I KNOW that love is the pathway, always through time, no matter how painful it may seem at the time. LOVE is the only healing measure that works. And Abundance ?- it comes from within and shines outwards.

Compassion comes from God and works through us. It is one of God’s greatest gifts to us, if only we can unwrap this precious gift and share it with ALL.  Remorse, self acceptance and the hard yards of love yield an eternity of bliss. Disdain, denial, the easier yards of hate driven anger and our ego’s thoughtless actions yield an eternity of suffering and torment. Choice, through our free will, comes to us through our stories. The stories we play in our head, the stories we hear from each other.

Choice through LOVE and innocence, comes straight from God. The choice to adorn ourselves in the same clothing that our rich “emperor’s wear,  cut for them by those deceiving “taylors”, is up to our free will. Our innocence, nurtured by love allows us to move beyond the idea of any choice and instead, walk hand in hand with God.

and… folks, just a few more photos to look at:- the bottom right one is of an environmental weeds workshop I conducted with some year 7 students back in the early nineties, in Ipswich, SE Qld. Back then, the Dept. of Environment & Heritage had only just started to compile Environmental Weeds lists and strategies for management. Climate change was not even a “buzz” word and yet many many people were aware of species extinctions, habitat threats etc. Vegetation surveys were scarce and development, which was running rife,  was known to be threatening the Koalas of the SE QLD region by many people, yet little was being done to help the Koalas. Developers and government officials largely ignored the plight of Australian wildlife, and whilst there were  dedicated “on the ground workers” and environmental campaigners, politics, corporate greed, corruption and deceit was the order of the day. How much has changed? I’ll leave that to you to tell the story.

**(From my stats figures, I gather that quite a few people use them as a  study resource to find further information on environmental, astrological and in particular habitat care issues.)

shop till you drop bop till you pop
the Bluesfest of Byron is near
the Belongil site’s ready
and Tyagarah looks steady

The Byron Bay Bluesfest 2009 clearly illustrates that the  dichotomy of human rational, ignorance and self-gratuitous environmental belief systems is alive and well in Byron Bay, 2009. The Byron Bay Bluesfest has a long history within the Mt Warning Caldera Region and beyond.
And the slow subtle degradation of habitats and environmental health in the Byron Shire also has a long history.  Players in this field (Belongil Fields and beyond) can pat themselves on the back, preen their egos and shuffle their heads back into the sand. I just wonder how many cigarette butts, bottle tops and pieces of plastic they will find there, after the Byron Bay Bluesfest 2009 is gone and the animals that have survived the trauma of forced relocation come back to their homes to continue their lives.
I love music, I love the land, I love the animals and the human spirits that live in this beautiful Mt Warning Caldera Region.  I pray with all my might that some mass consciousness shift occurs at the Byron Bay Bluesfest at Belongil Fields (or is it Tyagarah?) this year (2009), so that the coming years of Bluesfest “mania” (Tyagarah ?)become directly, immediately and thoroughly accountable to the authentic spiritual land guardians of the Mt Warning Caldera Region.
I say this, because it is clear to me that the Byron Shire is incapable of taking care of this beautiful part of the world – one only has to walk along the shoreline at Byron and through the parklands to see just how much plastic, rubbish, cigarette butts, bottle tops, batteries and god know’s how much unseen waste and toxins have infiltrated the habitats that they proclaim to protect.
The Arakwal people are the historical custodians of the land in this area. Their land stewardship preserved a unique and diverse environmental heritage, much of which has now been swallowed up by inappropriate 19th, 20th and now 21st century development.  Today, more and more people have an increasing  impact on this area and region, and from what I can see, the heritage and rights for the native animals that live in the Habitats of the Byron Shire have been severely compromised.
Words like “precautionary principle”, “environmental sustainability”, “caring for country” and “global crisis” mean nothing, when the current dichotomy of human words and actions are let loose on the planet. Please don’t let the “vision fade”.

2009 Spendour in the Grass Festival Yelgun

Byron Shire Council and the Splendour in the Grass Festival – article in Byron Shire Echo 27th January 2009

Environmental Defender’s Office NSW

EDO Compliance Portal – a tool to assist citizens in enforcing environmental law

Byron Flora and Fauna Study 1999 (google HTML) or at Byron Shire Council publications website