May 29 2009
Tribal Alchemy
Tribal Alchemy
Who would you trust to take into the jungle?
“Hi, Ram, how’s it going?” Poppa grins down at me from his lanky height as we meet unexpectedly in the main street of the local village. I gesture at the misty rain falling over the fertile slopes of our neighbouring valleys, visible from our vantage at the crossroads.
“Really well – it’s just that I can’t remember why I’m doing all this.”
“I know what you mean… it can be pretty tiring…”
“Oh, it isn’t that; it’s more of a question of meaning and motivation; Buddhism and existentialism.’
“But it’s all going well out there?”
“Certainly can’t complain about anything in a year like this – not after the last half decade. The nut trees are booming and there’s plenty of fruit, particularly citrus - even in what’s supposed to be their ‘off’ year. All the creeks are running and the waterfalls and spa pools are flowing spectacularly - how’s it going with you?”
“Oh, you know,” he says. “Same old same old, but nothing to complain about really.”
“Where are you these days?”
“Oh, you know, still over near the end of the little valley for now. I hear you have some new people over at your place. How’s it going?”
“Surprisingly well, considering the local population has suddenly increased from one and a half to around a dozen, including all the kids – and there’s another on the way. Not one of mine,” I hasten to add. “They’re all really environmentally aware folks and great people as well, and you know how it is – everything comes down to chemistry.” Poppa and his brood have had mixed experiences sharing their land with others, as have many people in the bush; he knows precisely what I mean. After all, who would you trust to take into the jungle with you? The question is even more complex than it first appears when you’re considering living with people more or less permanently.
Growing a new tribe is even more complex – it’s only possible at all if everyone involved is aware and tolerant of each other’s needs and differences, and if they can have a good time together. It’s only viable out here in the bush if everyone is environmentally aware and involved in maintaining and healing the environment, however large or small it may be. Out here the pantry is huge and the backyard is even larger, but there are always dishes to wash and kids’ debris to clean up…
Poppa and his wife Nell had some bad experiences with friends on the block they used to live on – but that isn’t why they came to leave ‘their’ block of land, a piece of paradise they’d bought title to (You don’t actually buy land here in Oz; you buy a piece of paper that says you have the right to occupy it. The ‘Crown’ owns it – and of course, in Oz the Crown is still anachronistically but officially the Queen of England). They’d been terraforming and filling the land with Permaculture orchards for over a decade, repairing waterways and regenerating the decimated rainforest. Then redneck neighbours began a series of attacks on their family and friends - when the alternative new settlers tried to stop the ‘old family pioneers’ from stealing old growth trees from their block, and that of other, absent occupiers.
Our mutual friend Torquil was badly hurt when a heavy block-splitter – a timber-splitting tool shaped and weighted like a sharpened sledgehammer - severed the tendons of his chest and carved through his flesh right through to his sternum, when he tried to stop an inbred loony logger from stealing a two metre thick tree from the driveway leading to Poppa and Nell’s house. A local Aboriginal elder who accompanied Torquil had his scalp split to the bone when he tried to verbally intervene.
Big old trees are worth a lot these days – but they still aren’t considered priceless, as they would be in any sane society that has left so few of them in its rapacious drive to dominate the planet. The offending logger – a well-established landholder with thousands of hectares under the thumb of his family already – had no big old trees left to cut down on their own place. Do you wonder why? Do you know how long it takes for a real tree to grow to maturity? How long do you have, personally? Probably not long enough to see it happen…
Things went downhill after Torquil’s unprofitable exchange with the bull-necked neighbour and Poppa and Nell had to transport their brood over the low range into a nearby valley - where they could continue replanting and resuscitating yet another cattle-trashed, thoroughly logged-out decimated landscape of once pristine creeks and rainforest-cloaked hills. The ranchers destroyed everything, went broke and moved away, leaving the mess for some optimistic hippies to clean up – as usual.
The only time the cops turn up promptly is to bust some poor small-time weed farmer – otherwise you can wait for days for the authorities to appear, if you’re being physically attacked or robbed or burned out. Police may be overstretched in the cities, but in the bush there aren’t any. There is, of course, an upside to this – if you don’t make any enemies.
So the evil violent rednecks win again, enjoying windfall profits for a generation or two before it all slips through their fingers; but it’s hardly a case of evolution in action – just poll-driven politicians overseeing polite police inaction. Soon there’ll be no trees, no soil and no water in another valley of the rednecks, and when the time comes for them to leave no greenie will welcome them, and no redneck rancher will welcome another of their own to share ‘their’ block of land - and the bankrupt malefactors will move to town.
The townies will know nothing of the destructive loony’s incompetence as they listen to their tall tales of unlucky woe in the local pub full of maudlin losers. They’ll blame the greenies for their losses, claiming the environmentalists stopped them going from going about ‘their business’ with impunity – when their own brainless behaviour has left no business for anyone to go on with. It happens all the time in the Lucky country – but times are changing fast. Welcome to the New Millennium.
Meanwhile, Poppa and Nell have gotten on with the job of saving and healing the planet. “Sounds like you’re having a good time,” Poppa remarks as we watch the streamers of rain approach. “Maybe I’ll bring the family over for a visit in Spring.” The winter solstice is almost a month away; such is the slow pace of time’s tide out here in the bush.
“Please – any time. And the river’ll be warmer for swimming by then.”
“You’re on,” he smiles, shading his eyes as a beam of sunlight breaks through the clouds. It’s obvious Poppa needs to keep moving, and Wonder Boy’s small parent-run primary school is expecting me to turn up and help oversee an elementary computer class.
“And you know,” I say as we part at the crossroads, “if you stay out there for a year you get a share in the place for free”. He tilts his head as he considers the statement.
Why would I do such a thing? Well. after all, you can’t have too many friendly, intelligent, environmentally aware experienced Permaculturalists - who are also trained teachers and flora and fauna surveyors – living with you out here in the jungle. “Say hello to Nell and the kids for me.”
“I will. Have a good one! Be seeing you…”
Time appears to flow on…
- R.A.
images - author’s
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