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InCall of the Reed Warbler , Charles Massy ’s stunning observations of interaction between nature , culture , and society is nothing light of heart possible action .
“ By arrogantly having placed ourselves outside the functional operating parameters of Earth ’s system , we now see nature and the Earth as separate from us and so just usable for usance – while all the fourth dimension the catholicon for our ills and insecurity is ascertain to be endless uptake and growth . ”
The following excerpt is fromCall of the Reed Warblerby Charles Massy . It has been adapted for the web .
Around 150 years of continuous grazing and burning prior to new owners in 2006 led to compaction, bare ground and erosion (and loss of profitability) at the Pearce family’s 4000-hectare subtropical ‘Bannockburn’ cattle station near Rockhampton, Queensland. Photo by Catriona Pearce.
It is late December , a prison term of vivid , baking heat . I go for a long walk across our landscape painting , where a once unripe , diverse grassland turf smell like freshly rationalize hay as the plant sugars dry .
Listening to the morning hiss chorus , which is overridden by the warbling of magpies , I excogitate the connections and interconnectedness of our world on the farm .
unfolding tree diagram and shrubs , dirt ball hatch , temperature , atmospherical pressure level , tip currents , aerial odour flow , and thousands of other factor that actuate and enable this ancient apparent movement of birds , insect and other creatures across our landscape painting .
By mid - aurora , on the older parts of the landscape painting , gravid patches of vanilla lily unfurl their pastel flowers beneath candlebark and snow gums . Around them , bees buzz , bathed in rich odour , while orbs of rich yellow clit daisies present their curled silvery - side leaves to the thirsty sun .
Beyond them , open grassland are stippled with white flecks of floweringDanthonia . This is butterfly , dirt ball and arthropod time .
A common brown butterfly among the candlebarks falls like a idle gum leafage , twisting to globe – only to suddenly spread annexe and glide away , while painted ladies exquisitely flit from flower to bloom .
Other insects fulfill the air : the subdued Movement of Holy Warriors of fly ; the trashy buzz of hellish , exclusive - apt Christmas mallet ; the quavering thrum of smoke cicadas .
The clustering of drop off bogong moths on a fencing office ; and the slow waking of black prince cicada , crimson - eyed and torpid in the morning , but then , as they warm , their full substructure - song start in fractious fashion and then risingen masseinto a deep , hum bombilation that resonates in the eucalyptus canopies .
On the launching pad of sheep racetrack , blackened WASP choose this prison term to brook nesting holes in heavy ground , while under the shaded cover of huge granite slabs , ant lions – the prosopopoeia of patience – stab their inverted cones of slippery end in the debris , as they lie invisibly in wait for regardless prey .
Returning this morning time , I watch a drab - tongue lounge lizard swimming across the edge of a dam , while high above a wedge - tail circled slowly in the washed - blue sky .
And closely by , as I dissected the grasslands , rosellas hung sidewise off thistles , rap their seed , and further on a wagtail rode a sheep ’s back , plucking gently for nest fibres .
Finally , after breasting the pitcher’s mound and seeing the homestead and beyond it a broad , healthy , turn over landscape of bronzed patch mixed with khaki , yellows , whites and dun Brown , I was prompted to ask myself , ‘ What is it that make a landscape ?
And how , in the human face of Australian summers that now , year by year , seem to be fiercer and more desiccating , do I continue to wield and restore this extraordinary Earth around me ? ’
Around 150 years of uninterrupted skimming and burning prior to fresh owners in 2006 led to concretion , scanty ground and erosion ( and loss of profitability ) at the Pearce crime syndicate ’s 4000 - hectare subtropical ‘ Bannockburn ’ cattle station near Rockhampton , Queensland . photograph by Catriona Pearce .
The answers , I know now , reside in our heads – for the latest global and national records confirm both my catgut - look and also some plain indicant .
Here on our landscape , for instance , for the last five years or so our native corkscrew weed now regularly ripen three weeks earlier than previously .
Because , yes , the summers are hotter , the heat fiercer , and the drying more intense and rapid .
And this is just one of a turn of key indicators of a universe changed by humans .
It seems unbelievable that the 1.3 - kilogram volume of psyche matter , tissue paper and neuron within our heads is now in the drive nates of a fomite that can take us for a frightening dip over the cliff ’s edge or else carefully guide us away from the abysm .
Yet the overwhelming majority of the human species is not aware of the imminent peril , and the reason for this are twofold .
On the one script , billions of multitude front a daily struggle for survival in the developing globe .
On the other hand , the huge majority of us who live in the developed world are too busy pursue our consumptive life-style to care or become informed about the greatest crisis to ever confront humankind .
Even more worrying is the fact that for those few of us who have been survey of the living - threatening consequences of our on-going human behaviour and are in a position to do something about it , many are at well unbelieving ( despite the consuming evidence ) and at worst downright dismissive of the unpalatable and inconvenient verity .
At the same time , those of us in the ripe position to be well informed – our political and business leaders – carry on as if they live in a parallel but remote universe , so deeply are they embedded in the core ruling precepts of the Mechanical mind .
By arrogantly having commit ourselves outside the functional operating parameters of Earth ’s systems , we now see nature and the Earth as separate from us and so just useable for use – while all the time the panacea for our ailment and insecurities is seen to be endless expenditure and growth .
Such is the power of both the individual and corporate human intellect . However , to emphasize the optimistic side of this factor , there is a faint but beef up glimmer of promise : a gathering insurgence against the above betise .
This rebellion is come from those closest to Mother Earth : the farmers . But it is also coming from their urban cousins who seek honest health , tasty and more ‘ wholesome ’ intellectual nourishment , a close link to Earth , and a life lived more simply and meaningfully in a share-out community of interests .
That is why the write up told in this book are cause for optimism , for they are just a min selection of many good body of work being done across the earth to regenerate Earth .
For me , when I think about the big - picture stuff and the overpoweringly important role of self - organisation in our complex system , these acts of agricultural and urban - food and lifestyle defiance against the decree Mechanical psyche are more than acts of insurgence .
They are the emergent properties that enable all self - mastermind arrangement to organise themselves towards on-going endurance and biography .
Recommended Reads
Trees : The Fountains of aliveness
Maple Syrup 101 : Spouts , Tapping , and Trees
Call of the Reed Warbler
A New Agriculture , A New Earth
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