Living River on a Beautiful Day

The Brahminy Kite flies in slowly and settles on a branch overlooking the river. Tiny birds such as Wrens and Flycatchers hop chirpily through the undergrowth. Ravens caw overhead. It's just another beautiful day on the river. As Bono sings in the evocative U2 song Beautiful Day.

It's a beautiful day
Sky falls, you feel like
It's a beautiful day
Don't let it get away

See the world in green and blue
See China right in front of you
See the canyons broken by cloud
See the tuna fleets clearing the sea out
See the Bedouin fires at night
See the oil fields at first light
And see the bird with a leaf in her mouth
After the flood all the colors came out

Here, in Bono's song, incidentally performed at the Live 8 megaconcert, beauty meets concern and care for global devastation. And, in a plea for action, it calls for peace and social and environmental justice.

U2 use their music to raise political issues. They use their celebrity status and moving lyrics to call for an end to poverty, to stop overfishing, to halt rapid overdevelopment and to bring peace to the world in the song's image of the peace dove. Hope springs eternal - after the biblical flood, the world was born new again, colours burst forth and it was, and is, beautiful.

Beauty, poetry and any mention of the spiritual seem to be anathema to river management and are are largely missing from the more clinical discussions on natural resource approaches. Passion for place is absent. Feelings of love or attachment are buried as if projects to protect, save or restore a beautiful place like the river domain have little to do with these emotions. Individuals and groups involved in NRM community consultations are referred to as 'stakeholders' who are encouraged to bring arguments about the merits or otherwise of the stakes they hold. Emotions may flare but feelings of love, joy and passion rarely hold sway with decision makers.

Places may get protected not because people love them and express their feelings of love openly but perhaps because we/they realise that to be heard and taken seriously, we/they need to voice our concerns in NRM speak - resources, impacts, allocations, assessments, scientific research findings and management measures. But what needs to be managed - is it human or nature?

But some of these narrowly framed NRM practices are being countered in an unsual way - using art and music to raise community awareness about environmental and social concerns in more creative and innovative ways. In many places across the globe, creativity has become a cornerstone for community action and involvement.

One powerful example of creative ecology is what's known as River Dialogues. In different localities around the US, communities are taking part in discussions about their river systems. The aim is to find a balance between the needs of residents and the needs of the river. For example, in Spokane, the River Dialogues project sourced and involved local residents 'passionate' about the river. They told stories about their relationship with the river and along the way created relationship and community capital.

One of the local residents, Mary Kunkel, started a small activist group called River Sisters, made of up of women who cared passionately about their region and were worried about the river. The river area was destined to become a 'condo' development but their concerted effort and committed action led to the creation of an open access river park instead.

This now very well-used and loved park began with passion and sharing stories about what the river meant to them.

Another Spokane group Friends of the Falls also encouraged locals to think about, and connect with the river. Says Steve Faust, the group's Executive Director:

'My relationship with the river was like a lot of people in this town. They sort of know it's there, but they don't really pay much attention to it. One of things we try to do as an organization is to change the way that people relate to this river. To really get them to engage with it in a positive way, with the expectation that if they engage with it, we will, as a city, have a higher degree of concern about what we do with the river.' (Spokesman Review, 2006).

Telling and re-telling stories of place is one way to keep the history and presence of a place alive and in people's hearts. It can also help raise awareness about how to improve and/or restore water quality and riverbank eco-aesthetics by sharing experiences of involvement in rivercare and recreation as well as knowledge of the river's ecology. Emerging out of this process of sharing stories, suggests Linda Burnham (2001), founder and director of the Community Arts Network, come innovative ways of managing and improving the water environment.

Another River Dialogues project, this time in Pennsylvania, set out to engage local residents in 'issues of water quality, riverbank diversity, stream restoration, and river advocacy'. Using a multi-disciplinary team of artists and scientists known as 3 Rivers, 2nd Nature, the project assessed water quality and the state of urban riverbanks and questioned the 'blue and green infrastructure of a recovering landscape' by asking the following questions:

'1. Can artists working as cultural agents affect the public policies and private economic programs, which mark and define urban places and ecosystems?
2. Given the issues of scale, the power of private interests and the state both invested in the development/growth model, can the artist develop a public realm advocacy that expands the creative act beyond the authorship of the artist?
3. Finally, can (and should) artists create verifiable social change?'

Blending ecology with art, the research team arranged river tours and gathered residents, artists and ecologists together to tell stories and brainstorm ideas in groups referred to as charrettes. Through these active and engaged focus groups the research team devised a set of Living River Principles.

Living River Principles is a set of guidelines for caring for local waterways and also designed as a 'challenge' to communities, governments and residents about the urgent need to ensure healthy water quality for rivers and streams, and to do something about it, especially at the local level.

The Living River principles state:
'1. Each community should monitor and care for water quality in rivers and streams
2. Upstream community water problems should not impact downstream communities
3. Water problems should be solved at the source, addressing cause, not effect
4. Public rights to waterways and wetlands should not be compromised by private interests
5. Wetlands and streams should be treated as economic and ecological assets
6. Wetlands and streams should not be lost, and should be restored where possible
7. Public access to and from the water, and along the water's edge, should be restored
8. Riverbanks should be preserved or restored to their natural form wherever possible
9. Pre-industrial connections between water and communities should be restored
10. Redevelopment should accommodate public access to water and riverbanks
11. Redevelopment should restore community, culture, ecology and economy.'

These principles are part of a wider program to encourage action towards protecting riverine ecosystems at all levels. They are based on the presumption that water needs to be a common access resource. But in many regions, water is also a privatized resource, and thus the cost of what is a basic right can become, and has become, way too expensive for individuals who simply can't afford it.

The rationale of the Living Principles states that:'All citizens should be able to have a direct relationship to water; All rivers and streams should meet the water quality standard for swimming; and Rivers and streams should support an increasing diversity of plant and wildlife.' These recommendations are not dissimilar to the water quality reports from SE Queensland, and more widely, rivers throughout Australia.

But in a field of rapid development and lack of action on Living River Principles, coupled with the severe drought, creating healthy river systems and restoring environmental damage seems a long way off...but still possible. It requires passion, certainly, and commitment, and perhaps a shift in resource management practices to hold consultations as conversations where stories can be shared and in the process, both the environment and the local community can be regenerated.

Reference
Burnham LF, 2001, Telling and Listening in Public: Factors for Success, Reading Room, Community Arts Network, http://www.communityarts.net/readingroom/archivefiles/2001/02/telling_and_lis_2.php
Spokeman Review, 2006, Spokane River Dialogues, http://www.spokesmanreview.com/tools/story_pf.asp?ID=129449

Solstice Light

Intense solstice light spreads across the river valley. It’s a sleepy kind of day in what Brisbane residents call mid-winter. Coming from southern climes, this seems like a warm spring day. There is a hint of coolness in the delicate breeze; but the heat is pervasive, especially out of the shade. In Brisbane there is very little respite from the daunting summer sun. Happily that is still a few weeks away.

Last night a large orange not-quite-full-moon rose slowly above the hill. It looked magnificent as it heralded in the longest night. I watched as stars began to sprinkle the darkening canopy with bursts of lumino-esssence until the sky was sponged all over with lustrous clusters. What stood out were the two white pointers of the Southern Cross, alpha and beta Centauri, shining even more prominently than those of its emblematic cousin. While high in the sky flowed the dazzling river of stars, the Milky Way.

American poet and global justice activist Drew Dellinger writes in one of his magical poems the laws of earth and objects of feeling the 'strange music' of the heart of this dazzling skyway.

'at the core of the Milky Way there's a black hole with a ring of blue
stars around it
at the core of the Milky Way there's a black hole with a ring of blue
stars around it

does anyone else feel this strange music?'
(Drew Dellinger)

Dellinger's poetry talks about the ineffable, the spiritual quest and the necessity of merging environmental activism with social justice. He believes that the terms cosmos and justice are synonymous with beauty and uses his beautiful words and his commitment to action to move the hearts of those who feel the 'strange music', where his voice intermingles with the voice of the cosmos.

A performance poet, as well as a reflective activist, Dellinger features on several online sites. In one titled The Poetry of Gratefulness 08, I find his breathtaking and passionate Love Letter to the Milky Way and these words explode off the screen: 'I inherit the voice of the Milky Way in dreams.' It touches me deeply.

So I search among other sites and find a copy of this most powerful poem whose lines ripple with the flow of the Brisbane River as I walk along its edge on this shortest day. It is indeed a homage to the starlight, to the cosmos, to the intimate confluence of human and nature, and to his passion for the planet.

Love Letter the the Milky Way

'I want to tell you about love
There are approximately 1 trillion galaxies
I want to tell you about
In the Milky Way there are about 100 billion stars
I want to tell you
Love is the breath of the cosmos
I want to write a love letter to the Milky Way
Everything is an expression of the galaxy
My 30 trillion cells
The four noble truths
The eight - fold path
The five precepts
The seven energy centers of the body
Everything is the Milky Way
Including my lover,
and every kiss
of every lover that’s ever
loved
________________________________________________

Your skin
the texture of the cosmos
the religion beyond religion
I want to know you like the wind knows the canyon
or the rain knows the rivulets
Lightening is continuously striking in 100 places every moment
The universe spills through our dreams
The future belongs to the most compelling story
Even the word "love"
is not adequate to define
the force that wove
the fabric of
space-time
If we could sense everything at once
like Krishna entering with all the memory of his past
incarnations
then I could tell you about love.'
(Drew Dellinger)

A Field of Blue

Along the trail I meet Susan walking her black and white sheep dog. The first thing she remarks on is the quality of the sky, its clarity, its intensity and its depth of colour. The seasons are changing. Mornings are cooler and the cloying humidity has dropped.

In the summer months Brisbane is bathed in a sweltering humidity which covers the city in a sheer film of water vapour that seems to dull or blur the colours of nature.

As the Kookaburras call in the background, Susan remarks on the refreshing cooling breeze. It's been quite a while since tufts of wind have murmured across the trees and rippled the usually smooth smooth river. 'But,' she says, 'it's so dry.' I agree. I'd been lying on the tough yellowing grass taking pictures of the sky and saw how sparse the grass was becoming. It was as if the drought had not really gone away but had just been hiding during the few wet weeks. Now it was back and the plants had begun to suffer. And Susan had noticed.

So I began to wonder - what makes someone aware and observant about the river's ecoclimate? And could this awareness be translated in any way to river care?

To help me answer these questions I turn to Helen Dunn's article 'Defining the ecological values of rivers: the views of Australian river scientists and managers' (2004). She recommends that the first step towards protecting a river is 'to define the particular values and attributes that describe [its] conservation significance' (413). Dunn surveyed river scientists and found, perhaps not surprisingly, that what they valued about rivers was their naturalness, rarity and diversity of ecosystems and endemic species.

Rivers valued for their naturalness such as wild rivers or rivers in remote areas are considered a high priority for conservation although Dunn's respondents did mention the significance of pockets of the wild as ecological value in already 'disturbed rivers'. They also noted 'the role of rivers in providing corridors for dispersal and migration, and refuges in times of drought'. Dunn mentions that in the past rivers have been protected because of their high scenic value and their wildness but her survey pointed to current emphasis on the importance of ecological and conservation values of river systems.

Other studies outline that the vital values influencing river conservation are recreational, cultural, economic, social and environmental. According to the Victorian Department of Natural Resources and Environment (2002), rivers are valued for their 'assets' including 'environmental assets' such as rare species, sites of significance, naturalness, health; 'economic assets' which relate water supply and industry's reliance on river health; and 'social assets' such as sites for recreation and those of special significance for indigenous and European (only?) cultures.

So what does the Brisbane River offer by way of values, especially in the urban area? A paper by Lauren Schroeder (2002) about the values arising from the restoration of the Mahoning River Watershed in the US sheds a different light on definitions of conservation values. Schroeder defines river values in more socially engaged terms. These relate to the benefits that future generations will enjoy from a fully restored river, to residents' increased quality of life, and to the pride residents will feel by living near 'a restored, beautiful river'.

She surmises that these values are likely to engender a sense of social wellbeing manifest in a greater sense of 'social cohesion, social conscience and self-esteem'. She suspects that these outcomes could lead to a reduction in crime and a rise in work performance and productivity. She agrees it's hard to assess these values in monetary terms but says this shouldn't be a reason not to seriously consider social impacts and beneficial outcomes. In fact she comments that the process of restoring the Mahoning River system 'invites' local citizens 'to speak with pride of the river as a symbol of beauty, and of how we care for our environment, how we value and care for our heritage may prove to be the most valuable asset that we have...'.

Studies on local rivers tend to focus on water quality, allocation and flow and not on the social impacts of these issues. But the Brisbane River is more than its scientific value; it is an interdependent network of people, places and natural amenity. Thus, to incorporate this concept of interconnectedness, studies on the ecological and economic value of the river system need to be expanded to embrace social and spiritual values.

References:
Dunn H, 2004, Defining the ecological values of rivers: the views of Australian river scientists and managers, Aquatic Conservation, Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems, 14, 4, 413–433.
Schroeder L, 2002, The Value of a River: How the Mahoning River’s Restoration Will Impact Our Quality of Life & Economic Vitality, http://www.ysu.edu/mahoning_river/Research%20Reports/river_value.htm

River and the Deities

The river valley sits shrouded in fog. Outside the valley the sun glows.

In other places, other cultures and other religions, the river is the Goddess. Likewise, the living spirits of rivers are depicted as deities, for instance, as snake, python, anaconda, dragon. Frequently, these deities are female perhaps because the element of water is regarded as a feminine essence embodying 'life, birth and rebirth, creation and creativity, but also with death and oblivion' (Parente-Čapková, 2006).

The question then arises, does the Brisbane River and the downstream embayment Moreton Bay, have a feminine or goddess quality? In a contemporary sense, and in relation to Goddess spirituality, practitioners might honour the River as a Goddess and through this honouring and ritualising, seek protection for the ecosystem and creatures who live along the watery terrain.

In India river Goddesses like the sacred Ganga and Yamuna are under severe threat. I have written previously in this blog about the insightful book with the difficult message by David Haberman, River of Love in an Age of Pollution (2006), which stories the Goddess Yamuna who flows in the upper reaches of the Ganges. The river is both a river of death - and a river of love.

Both the Ganges and the Yamuna are believed to be spiritually pure but both are in appalling physical shape with raw sewerage, industrial and agricultural runoff, toxics and heavy metals flowing through these vital waterways. These rivers are the Goddess. Spiritually they are divine, reverential, beautiful. Devotees worship the Goddess by immersing themselves in Her sacred flow or conducting ritual washing in Her sacred waters. Yet sadly, while doing so, they are facing serious waterborne diseases and the risk of contact with toxic chemicals.

Sathya Gosselin (nd) in her paper Pollution and Ganga Ma writes of the Ganges or Ganga, as the great mother who 'mercifully provides for the people each year with her swelling monsoon ... Indians receive her with great blessings and appreciation; village farmers benefit greatly from the fertile silt and soil that the great Ganga leaves behind. Seasonal flooding leaves small pools and lakes (jhils) that are diverted to irrigate crops in an otherwise dry land ...[She] speaks life, renewal, and fertility...'. But, says Gosselin, she is being assaulted.

Gosselin's article talks about the problems in India of first, defining the term 'pollution', second, explaining what's happened to the vast amounts of funding directed to the Ganges' clean up campaign, and third, the frustration of local residents not consulted about the river's management plans.

She says that the very term pollution is problematic when the river Herself is spiritually pure but suffering from impurities. Gosselin cites the anthropologist Kelly Alley (1994) who grapples with this dichotomy - the spiritual versus the westernised resource management approach. For devotees, 'the Ganga can never be impure' (1994:130). She is a powerful force and can carry the impurities and pollution 'away into the ocean'. In this comment Alley recognises that the Goddess is believed to have the power to transform impurities and offer absolution whether spiritual and/or physical and this includes body wastes. It has thus been so.

This cultural difference in ways of seeing (and revering) sacred water brings me back to the Brisbane River and the contemplation of Goddess spirituality. There are a number of possible modes of thought and action worth reflecting on. For instance, in a (post/most)modern world there is a view that anything (or almost anything) goes. So in this perspective it may not really matter what the river is called as long as it is cared for. Indeed, regarding the river as a Goddess might very well engender an ethic of greater care and concern among residents and if so, acknowledging the sacredness of the water's tidal flow and its downstream embayment can be seen as a positive move.

On the other hand there is the spectra of cultural appropriation. Goddess spirituality as it is practised in Australia is one of a number of emergent religions connected to the spread of interest in earth-based spirituality, feminism, Paganism and the New Age movement. But indigenous cultures including Native Americans and Aboriginal people have rejected these individualised New Age spiritual movements not only because they tend to romanticise indigenous cultures, particularly the spiritual and ecological lifeways, but also due to practitioners borrowing, stealing or misappropriating sacred rituals and sacred beliefs.

Christina Welch (2002) criticises New Agers for buying and selling these precious practices saying that they are simply reaffirming capitalist consumer culture. She comments that they lack an active political engagement in, and understanding of, the plight of indigenous peoples, while at the same time, she maintains that indigenous people should not be defined solely as the 'victims' of cultural appropriation concluding that: 'The colonialist presentation is refuted by indigenous agency in the dynamic of cultural growth' (2002:35).

My view falls somewhere in between. Embrace the River Goddess on one end of the spectrum or condemn cultural appropriation at the other. While I would find it difficult to overlay an indigenously-venerated waterway with a Goddess-inspired spirituality from ancient and/or distant lands, I can see that others might revere the local river with a spiritual demeanour which reflects their own cultural heritage.

For example, Bryne et al (2006) in their article 'Enchanted Parklands' cite a wonderful story of a Vietnamese-Australian living around the Georges River in SW Sydney who regards the river as the embodiment of a sacred dragon and defines locations along the river in terms of the dragon's anatomy.

In this light, the Brisbane River could be re-inscribed as Goddess and worshipped by those whose spirituality is defined as Goddess spirituality.

Reference
Alley KD, 1994, 'Ganga and gandagi: interpretation of pollution and waste in Benaras,' Ethnology, Spring, 33, 2.
Byrne D, H Goodall, S Wearing and A Cadzow, 2006, Enchanted Parklands, Australian Geographer, 37, 1, 103-115.
Gosselin S, nd, Ganga Ma, paper prepared for the Goddess Traditions in India and Tibet seminar at Vassar College, http://reli350.vassar.edu/gosselin/index.html
Haberman DL, 2006, River of Love in an Age of Pollution: The Yamuna River of Northern India. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Parente-Čapková V, 2006, Narcissuses, Medusas, Ophelias...Water Imagery And Femininity In The Texts By Two Decadent Women Writers, Wagadu, 3, Spring, http://web.cortland.edu/wagadu/Volume%203/Printable/capkova2.pdf
Welch C, 2002, Appropriating the Didjeridu and the Sweat Lodge: New Age Baddies and Indigenous Victims? Journal of Contemporary Religion, 17, 1, 21-36. http://www.wlu.ca/documents/6482/Appropriating_the_Did.pdf

Wild, Rivers and Reciprocal Flow

Sylvie Shaw

The wild is a place, a way to be, a process (i.e. to go wild) and a perception about what happens when wild land and wild waters are paved over, smothered or pulverised. This blog touches on some of the integral viewpoints of the effects of wild and wilderness.

Drastic changes along the river, and to the river's ecosystem, have been largely directed by developers responding to government strategies for the need to house the growing population in, and migration to, S.E. Queensland. In this action drama, the Brisbane River and its environs take centre stage as the target for transformation. Bushland, mangroves, water quality and water flow are affected, while river creatures, fish, snakes, birds, bats and insects, are forced to make way for a human population, many of whom are increasingly seeking river views, or even 'river glimpses' (quote from recent real estate advertisements).

The actors in this river drama are the residents, water users and water policy makers for whom the river seems not to have rights outside of human use, not even the right to its own water. These actors define water in anthropocentric terms, as a resource and development magnet that bypasses intrinsic value and extends storey after concrete storey high into the sky and along the river edge. As a result, the river, its tidal flow and its wild heart are covered with an economically-driven canopy.

Thus, in this era of rapid growth, there is little room for salvation of beauty, redemption of aesthetics, preservation of natural capital or for holding onto biodiversity outside of human use. Sustainable development seems a forgotten concept.

To explore these notions a little further, I have recently re-visited the work of wonderful Native Canadian novelist Jeanette Armstrong. In her article in Roszak, Gomes and Kanner (1995) titled 'Keepers of the Earth', Armstrong describes the image of non-indigenous people portrayed by her grandparents. They saw white settlers as being out of place, wild and insane, similar concepts to the way that early settlers regarded indigenous people.

For example in Australia, colonialists referred to Aborigines as ‘indolent in the extreme, squalid and filthy in their surroundings’, as well as ‘disgustingly impure amongst themselves’ (in Reynolds, 1987:108). Overtones of this attitude still exist today. Aboriginal people continue to be shown in the media as either drunk and violent (wild), sitting in the dirt surrounded by mangy dogs (dirty), or painted up and dancing for tourists (marginal objects). They remain in this picture, a people without agency compelled to live in a static past.

To illustrate the impact of these changes place and person, the anthropologist Deborah Bird Rose (1988) cites an Aboriginal elder and one of her Yarralin informants, Daly Pulkara, as saying that once white settlers arrived and began to irrevocably alter the land, it became 'wilderness', i.e. man-made, cattle-grazed, mined, desacralised. It became a place, in Aboriginal eyes, where 'life is absent'.

These examples highlight the difference between the way indigenous cultures perceive wild land and wild people and the way non-indigenous western cultures construct notions of the wild and wilderness. For an indigenous culture which has lost sacred land, or has been removed from country, there is a parallel between the dismemberment and despiriting of the land and the despiriting of identity.

Aboriginal people are born into an obligatory relationship with the land where caring for country is part of their reciprocal responsibility to place and community. In light of this sacred relationship, Rose (in another article) comments:‘To be in connection is to take care and to be cared for’ (Rose, 2006). Re-memorializing and resacralizing the land through ritual and other community-spiritual processes might create a re-memorying of sacred connection between people and place.

Taking care and being cared for are also qualities which have emerged from research into non-indigenous wilderness experiences. Although there are a number of studies into the significance and spirituality of wilderness experiences, particularly on the role of wilderness in therapy, self-development and revitalisation of youth 'at risk' (e.g. the TV series Brat Camp), there is little research on the emotional and spiritual effects of nature engagement in urban areas, such as along the Brisbane River, and limited studies on how people connect with nature in their daily lives, whether in urban or rural areas.

This research is crucial as without it planners, officials and developers can cover over green spaces and lop down suburban trees leaving less opportunity in the cityscape for nourishing the human spirit (physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual).

In comparison with a generation ago, urban dwellers have less everyday contact with the natural world. This is driven by an increasing involvement in the virtual world, widespread consumerism, intensification of the built environment, and a decline of public open spaces. Accompanying this external change, there may be a corresponding shift in consciousness and attitudes about the environment.

By this I mean that if city dwellers are removed from nature, if they don't know the intricacies of seasonal changes, if they have not fallen for the tidal movements, the glittering water, the delicate bird song, or tuned into the nuances along the river for instance, how and why would we expect them to want to protect this place?

Without solid Australian research on spiritual and psychological effects of nature connectedness and nature disconnection there is only limited evidence from which to argue for the preservation and expansion of wild city spaces. And without regular and direct sensual engagement with the natural world, people may not make the link between the lack of nature in their lives and their own wellbbeing and the wellbeing of the environment.

Nature in city environments is so familiar we may take it for granted. But it is being whittled away little by little, so we may not notice the change until it is too way late. Get out into nature and help save the earth.

References
Armstrong J, 1995, 'Keepers of the Earth,' in T. Roszak, ME Gomes, & AD Kanner, Eds., Ecopsychology. Restoring the Earth. Healing the Mind. San Francisco: Sierra Club.
Bird DB, 1988, 'Aboriginal Land Ethic,' Meanjin, 47, 3, 378-387
Bird DB, 2006, 'What if the Angel of History were a Dog?', Cultural Studies Review: Environments and Ecologies. 12, 1, 67-78.
Reynolds H 1987, Frontier: Aboriginal Settlers and Land. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.

Earth Temple

Sylvie Shaw


Earth, The Forgotten Temple (2004) is the title of a book which addresses the deep religious connection that nature brings. Author Niki Collins-Queen was a counsellor but put her career on hold to explore her deepening relationship to nature and God. Her church is the outdoors, the mountain top and the backyard.

In an article called 'Author finds God and spirituality in nature', Collins-Queen talks about how she unravelled her life on a spiritual quest going hiking, sailing, canoeing, often on lone adventures in wilderness settings. Her quest was answered on a solo trip to the mountains when she called for God to reveal Himself. She says: 'There was no doubt in my mind. ...I had experienced the presence of God, ... a loving energy permeating everything.' Following that experience, she saw God in all aspects of nature, in rivers, trees, plants, and animals (Judd, 1999).

In much of the research on people's wilderness experiences an event such as a spiritual awakening, an epiphany, or a feeling of oneness with the universe and with all things, is a frequent observation (e.g. Frederickson and Anderson, 1999; John Davis, 2006). People report a heightened sense of awareness and insight, a sense of mystery about the world, awe and wonderment in the face of the earth's power or nature's breathtaking beauty, a profound feeling of transcendence (within and without), a belief in a power greater than oneself, and a deep humility.

Nature spirituality, or 'awesome' experiences in wild nature sparkle with feelings of joy, empowerment, inner peace and hope. They promote physical and emotional well-being and encourage changes in attitude and behaviour (R. Fox, 1999; Kaplan & Kaplan, 1989). Importantly, as the marvellous Native American author Linda Hogan (1995:3) reminds us, meaningful encounters in the wild can lead to ‘a change of heart, a change of thinking, a change in [the] way of being and living in the world’.

Wilderness is not the only place for such transformative events, in fact, epiphanies or deep spiritual transitions can occur almost anywhere and in everyday life. For transpersonal thinker Abraham Maslow researching in the 1960s, they were 'peak' experiences; Rudolph Otto in the early 20th century might have reflected they were 'ideas of the holy', while for psychology pioneer William James, they were, to use the title of his book, 'varieties of religious experience'.

James argues that the heart of all religious experiences is grounded in subjective, individual experiences of Divinity or God. This definition marked a distinction between religion, often defined in terms of doctrine, dogma, hierarchy, institution, and spirituality, a more personal expression of relationship with the sacred. It is from this individualised connection with the Divine that the myths, rituals, teachings, texts and religious organisation emerge.

South Australian academic and author of The Earth Bible project, Norm Habel has considered the import of spiritual and religious experiences suggesting they can be divided into two streams - the numinous and the mystical (Habel et al, 1993). Numinous experiences are bound up with awe-full feelings of 'the otherness and power' of the sacred deity, while within the mystical, perceptions of ‘otherness’ disappears leaving a sensation of oneness and interconnection.

But I wonder if this distinction between the numinous and the mystical is made a little too strongly. Rather than a division between them, there might be more of a continuum. Both can be religious, spiritual or peak experiences which can be seen and experienced as moments of supreme transcendence or powerful self-transcendence. Throughout my research on nature carers (e.g. see Shaw, 2004) and sea-carers (Shaw, forthcoming 2008), I have interviewed several environmental activists and other deeply nature-connected individuals who say they are atheist and yet describe the feeling of oneness from encounters in mountain and ocean wilderness. Some call these powerful experiences 'real epiphanies' as if, at least in this culture, we lack the poetic, lyrical, passionate or sensuous language to explain the sense of mystery or unity with all things.

Other authors, in explaining these feelings as self-transcendence or transcendent experiences in nature, also define the perceptual limitations of western cultural binary construction which splits human from nature. Instead they describe the permeability, movement and interconnectedness between people and the natural world as an expansion of body boundaries, or as a merging of body into body, the human body with the body of the earth.

This expansive sense of self or identity is termed a variety of expressions, for example, Joanna Macy (1995) and Arne Naess (1988) celebrate the ‘ecological self’, Roger Walsh refers to the ‘transpersonal’ self (Walsh & Vaughan, 1993); for Warwick Fox (1995) it's the ‘cosmological self’; deep ecologist Bill Devall (1988) suggests ‘Gaea consciousness’; Ted Roszak (1992) explores the ‘ecological unconscious'; Adrian Harris (1998) reveres the ‘Goddess consciousness’; Mathew Fox seeks the 'cosmic Christ', while Druid Priestess Emma Restall Orr (1998) simply links ‘spirit to spirit’.

All these terms emerge from varied discourses: deep ecology (Macy, Devall, Naess), transpersonal psychology (Walsh, W. Fox) ecopsychology (Roszak), Paganism (Harris, Orr), and Christianity (M. Fox). All share an understanding that we are part of nature not above or apart from it and all involve some notion of an expansive sense of self that comes about by connecting with nature. They might differ in emphasis but the underlying outlook is the same. If the earth is to be protected and healed, there has to be some recognition of the power of the natural world and our intimate connection with it.

Perhaps then, this blog's focus is to develop a river consciousness, river-self or river identity where the water's flow reflects the movement of our lives and the tidal shifts become a pattern for the changes we experience. An expanded sense of river-self brings a sense of kinship with the river, its creatures and surroundings. Being within the riverscape one finds insight and inspiration, personal renewal, and renewal of commitment to the earth. It is an embodied creative force that weaves and is woven through our imagination, through music, poetry, dance, dreams and experiences of the mystical, numinous and spiritual kind.

References
Collins-Queen N, 2000, Earth, The Forgotten Temple, Impala Press.
Davis J, 2008, Wilderness Rites of Passage: Initiation, Growth, and Healing, http://www.johnvdavis.com/wild/index.htm
Devall B. 1988, Simple in Means, Rich in Ends. Practicing Deep Ecology. Salt Lake City, UT: Peregrine Smith Books.
Fox, M. 1988, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ. The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of Global Renaissance. Melbourne: Collins Dove.
Fox R, 1999, Enhancing Spiritual Experience in Adventure Programs”, in JC Miles and S Priest (eds.) Adventure Programming. State College, PA: Venture Publishing, Inc.
Fox W, 1995, Towards A Transpersonal Psychology. Developing New Foundations for Environmentalism. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press.
Fredrickson LM and DH Anderson, 1999, A qualitative explorationof the wilderness experience as a source of spiritual inspiration.Journal of Environmental Psychology, 19, 21-39.
Habel N C, 1993, Religious Experience, in NC Habel et al, Eds. Myth, Ritual and the Sacred. Underdale, S.A: University of South Australia, & Texts in Humanities, University of South Australia.
Hogan L, 1995, [Interview with] ‘Linda Hogan’”, in D Jensen, Ed., Listening to the Land. Conversations about Nature, Culture and Eros. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books.
Judd P, 1999, Author finds God and spirituality in nature, AuthorsDen.com, Forsyth, Monroe County, GA, December 8, 1999
http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewnews.asp?id=9224&AuthorID=1367
Kaplan R and S Kaplan, 1989, The Experience of Nature: A Psychological Perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press.
James W, 1997, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Touchstone Books.
Macy J. 1989, Awakening to Ecological Self, in J Plant, Ed., Healing the Wounds: The Promise of Ecofeminism. Philadelphia, PA: New Society Publishers.
Maslow AH, 1994, Religions, Values, and Peak Experiences, Penguin Books.
Orr ER, 1998, Spirits of the Sacred Grove. The World of a Druid Priestess. London: Thorsons.
Roszak T, 1992, The Voice of the Earth. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Otto R, 1917, 1923, The Idea of the Holy, Oxford University Press.
Shaw S, 2004, Wild Spirit, Active Love, in L de Angeles, ER Orr,T van Dooren, (eds), Pagan Visions For A Sustainable Future. St Paul, MI, Llewelyn.
Shaw S, 2008, forthcoming, Deep Blue Religion, in S Shaw and A Francis, Deep Blue: Critical Reflections on Nature Religion and Water, London, Equinox.

Place: The Sense of Spiritual Home

Knowing place reflects an intimacy with the elements of that place, the trees, the animals, the human visitors and, in the case of this blog, the Brisbane River. American nature writer, novelist and preservationist Wallace Stegner (1992) says that: 'Your province is not the wilderness, where the individual makes contact with the universe, but the farm, the neighborhood, the community, the town, the memory of the past, and the hope of the future—everything that is subsumed for you under the word 'place'.

Along the river, away from the road and signs of the city, the tall trees shimmer with the song and dance of birds. Flashing past overhead, in colours of red and green, the King Parrots are being pursued by a small gang of Noisy Mynahs. Miniscule pardalotes parade daintily on narrow branches above the water, while the blue-winged Forest Kingfisher fossicks among the leafy bushes, purring and gurgling as it searches for tasty treats. And right in front of me, the jauntily-dressed black and white Willie Wagtail wiggles its tail feathers back and forth as it hops from branch to branch as if leading the way. Watch out! The Brush turkeys scatter as runners zip past. Dogs bark, straining on their leashes to follow them. The river is brimming with life and movement.

Getting to know place is a joyous adventure. It involves making friends with the locals, human and animal, observing the changes in the light, the colour of water, the shifting seasons, the cycle of flowers and seeds, and the changing tapestry of hues. All these events, sights and sounds effectively bring me home to place.

Steven Galliano and Gary Loeffler are landscape architects in the US who have studied the connection between sense of place and attitudes to the ecosystem. In their paper Place Assessment: How People Define Ecosystems (1999), they recognize the significance of place attachment, saying it acts as a link between human and ecosystem as well as between social experiences and geographical regions (bio-regions).

According to Galliano and Loeffler, the concept of sense of place is individualistic, a subjective yet shared experience at once emotional and symbolic, which can define an individual, a community or a culture. Sense of place brings meaning to the lives of visitors and residents alike, affecting them in various ways from the physical to the spiritual. Feelings of attachment, allurement and love emerge as people engage with local places, reflect on their memories of place, tell stories of their childhood connections - the cubbies they built, the fish they caught, the trees they climbed, and track their life changes through the changes to place.

Even if we've never visited a particular place we can still value it for its symbolic resonance, its wilderness quality and its spiritual attributes and join with others to fight for its protection and survival. Yet these values are often bypassed in resource management practices as such practices are geared to defining places as 'resources' rather than, or in addition to, places which have meaning and can make meaning.

Galliano and Loeffler call for a different way for resource managers to make decisions about place. Place management and place attachment seem poles apart when development, mining or logging intervene. Different groups of stakeholders value places from differing and often clashing worldviews but it's not worldviews that are weighed up in resource management decisions. Their focus is on the physical, the objective, the measurable. Thus concepts like affinity and attachment to place which embrace emotional, symbolic and spiritual dimensions are neglected, and in many cases, rejected as being unscientific, subjective and weak.

As a consequence, the social and spiritual impacts of decisions can result in a strengthening of social/community capital as whole communities may decide to join together to defend what they regard as their place, or our place. Shared meanings about place become shared meanings about attempts to despoil that place.

Meanings about place can be classified in four main ways: (i) scenic-aesthetic; (ii) activity-goals, based on conventional resource management practices (iii) cultural-symbolic, representing emotional and spiritual dimensions; and (iv) individual-expressive, reflecting personalised or individualised meanings about place. Galliano and Loeffler suggest these themes can be used to better qualify management decisions and the likely impacts of those decisions. Using holistic principles, resource managers can more effectively map 'the interactive unity of people and place' (Clark, 1971), taking into account the multiplicity of values about places, not only the economic and/or the ecological.

Resource management processes and environmental impact assessments as they are currently structured often fail to address the intangible non-empirical values and shared experiences of individuals and communities. Galliano and Loeffler mention that one of these unmeasurables is compassion for both natural and cultural qualities of the place.

The Brisbane River and its natural environs is a place of values in conflict where management practices are based on conventional rather than holistic methodologies. I call such approaches 'neo-conservationist' as they attempt to conserve with conservativism. Rather than applying the precautionary principle of first do no harm, the neo-conservationist stance conserves use values over their counterpart, the intrinsic, aesthetic, symbolic and spiritual values, even if these values are founded on scientific evidence, indigenous ecological knowledge or archeological research.

What matters most? Biodiversity or a river view? A place to fish or a place where fishers are repelled? A place to clear or a place to log sustainably and look after? Techno-managerial solution oriented approaches may overlook the nuances inherent to these questions. A sustainable community can have both biodiversity and aesthetics, fishing and rivercare, urban forests and sustainable development.

Knowledge and understanding are key characteristics of resource management but perhaps, following Galliano's and Loeffler's research into place attachment, qualities of wisdom, insight and compassion should be added, to forge a holistic method that embraces the interactive unity of people with place.

References
Galliano SJ and GM Loeffler, 1999, Place assessment: how people define ecosystems. Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-462, Portland, OR, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. (Quigley, TM, Ed., Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project: Scientific assessment), http://www.treesearch.fs.fed.us/pubs/2980
Stegner W, 1992, The sense of place, a letter to Wendell Berry. In: Where the bluebird sings to the lemonade springs: living and writing in the West. New York, Random House, Inc.

Reverent River Ritual

If you were designing a ritual for the river, what would it look like? Each year at the Brisbane River Festival the River is honoured with a spectacular of fireworks. Massive colourful sparks fill the sky, spiralling, bursting, floating in an excitement of sight and sound. The Brisbane populace throngs the riverbank marvelling at the event which pays reverence to the icon of this city.

Rituals bind practitioners together in focused performance. The 19th century social scholar Emile Durkheim referred to the social cohesion and the energy of such worship as 'collective effervescence'. It's an embodied feeling which overflows with energy, enthusiasm and connection - with each other and with the object of worship, the river and environs.

Ritual theorists such as Richard Schechner and Victor Turner view ritual as an embodied performance enacted within a liminal or in-between space, an a-temporal plane, where social norms are loosened in a play at once subversive and celebratory.

In Brisbane, river rituals are a daily affair of connection with this watery realm. Currawongs chant their curra-wonnnggg, curra-wonnnggg song-chant to herald the river and focus our attention on its wide brown flow (muddy brown due to the massive rain and flooding recently) cruising slowly through the city. In this space the players/performers are those whose attention is drawn to the river as the central feature of this daily show which acts to integrate human and nature in an eternal dance.

In the liminal space we are transformed. We shed the shadows of our ordinary lives and enter into sacred space to commune with its symbolic elements - old growth trees, the tidal exchange of waters, the circus of birds - the Cockatoos screeching, the flashes of King Parrot's bright red wings and dashes of pink from flying Galahs, the lustrous feathers from Rainbow Lorikeets, the whistling song of the Butcherbird and the sweet sweet chirping of Scrub Wrens. The sight and sound of these performers is just as spectacular as the River Festival fireworks.

Victor Turner (1977:183) states that ritual is 'a stereotyped sequence of activities involving gestures, words, and objects, performed in a sequestered place, and designed to influence preternatural entities or forces on behalf of the actors' goals and interests' (in Deflem, 1991). They engage with the most significant values of a community - in the river's case, with the lifeblood of this city as the central water source as well as the other ecosystem services it provides. The river is sacred symbol, and rituals that revere its place and flow in the life of this city, can act as a kind of social transformer or social glue transforming community attitudes, values and behaviours about the river, its importance and their role in caring for it.

Victor Turner called these liminal space performances 'betwixt and between' but to me, they are part of the magical fabric of the Brisbane River valley. Not set apart from but a part of, embedded in the day/night/sun/moon/tides/flow of this wondrous effervescent glowing tidal ecotone.

References:
Deflem M, 1991, 'Ritual, Anti-Structure, and Religion: A Discussion of Victor Turner’s Processual Symbolic Analysis,' Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 30, 1, 1-25, http://www.cas.sc.edu/socy/faculty/deflem/zturn.htm
Turner V, 1977, Symbols in African Ritual. In JL Dolgin, DS Kemnitzer and DM Schneider, Eds. Symbolic Anthropology: A Reader in the Study of Symbols and Meanings, New York, Columbia University Press.

Ecologies of Care

Caring for the place where you live/love - how does that happen? Is the quality of caring something we only hold in the mind? Or does caring for place entail a practical engagement with that place? And does it involve a sense of responsibility and/or some kind of action to look after that place?

When I started this blog I knew little about this place, the original custodians of the land, the life of the colonists, and the changes that white settlement brought (and wrought). Learning about the historicity of this place has come about through meeting a local historian and other long-time residents along the trail, reading local histories, and peering through the undergrowth for signs of former riverbank uses - sugar cane farm, cattle raising, bird sanctuary, golf course, recreation - when there were swimming baths and sandy beaches along the river, when people used to live in boats moored to jetties, and when the river was clear and fishing abundant.

Caring for the river has encouraged this research and engagement. And I have learnt much from the river itself and the creatures who dwell here. The highlight was the flurry of Brahaminy Kites as they came, built their nest, laid eggs, hunted and watched over the river but the sadness as they were eventally chased away by a barrage of maurauding birds.

Each day there is something new to see and experience. Willie Wagtails shift location and their dancing flows with the river's tides. Red Wrens make way for their Blue cousins. Pardalotes dig their small tunnels into the muddy embankment and find home. Dozens of Cockatoos forage in the treetops. Black Ducks bark from their vantage point above in the Eucalypts. Sacred Kingfishers come and go. Each day another layer is peeled away; each day something more is revealed; this place is a veritable jewell of the Brisbane River.

And yet this vital natural corridor is under increasing pressure to change. The surrounding natural habitat, so essential for protecting water quality, is threatened especially by rapid development and the desire for water views. As a consequence, natural capital is displaced by other forms of capital.

When development is mooted local residents need to be consulted about how they perceive changes to the river valley and their views need to be taken into account. Caring needs to go both ways - so sustainable residential developments are created, ones which blend trees and natural amenity with eco-friendly construction.

Studies on how people perceive rivers and their preferences for particular riverscapes has shown they prefer rivers which curve and wind offering a sense of mystery and views through open trees (Levin, 1977 in Ryan, 1998). Another study found that the knowledge that 'nature' was present near to one's home was a strong indicator of residents' satisfaction (Talbot et al, 1987), while other research suggested people living near an 'unkempt creek' felt more affinity for a creek further away which was kempt and 'park-like' (Ryan, 1998: 226-227).

Robert Ryan (1998) surveyed residents in a rural region of the American midwest. And perhaps like here, they commented on the river's quality, pollution and the damage of agricultural runoff. One resident said: 'The river has been turned into a giant sewer, the farm pesticide and herbicide has killed most of the fish species, muskrats are non-existent. The amount of birdlife and habitat is way down.' (234).

Farmers and residents, long term and recent arrivals had differing perceptions about riverscapes and natural amenity with newly arrived folks being more attracted to local natural settings (the river and woods) than longer term residents who had more affinity with domesticated farmscapes (235).

When development threatens the river valley planners could take residents' values and perceptions into account. Robert Ryan says: 'Understanding how rural residents perceive river corridors ... is only half the battle. The more difficult task is for planners and local communities to develop plans which are senstitive to both human and environmental concerns (236).

Which brings me back to caring for place. If the Brisbane River valley is threatened by more and more development, to what extent are local people's perceptions canvassed? And if they care, and want to oppose habitat and river bank damage, will their caring voice be heard?

In contrast, where the public has been involved in consultation on river restoration, a UK study showed that local residents valued the river highly, used it increasingly, and attached great importance to the consultation and feedback process (Tunstall et al, 2000).

References:
Levin JE, 1977, Riverside Preference: On-site and Photographic Reactions, Unpublished Masters thesis, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.
Ryan RL, 1998, Local Perceptioins and Values for a Midwestern River Corridor, Landscape and Urban Planning, 42, 225-237.
Talbot JF, Bardwell LV, Kaplan R, 1987, The Function of Urban Nature: Uses and Values of Different Types of Urnam Nature Settings, Journal of Architectural and Planning Research, 4, 47-63.
Tunstall SM, Penning-Roswell EC, Tapsell SM and Eden SE, 2000, River Restoration: Public Attitudes and Expectations, JCIWEM, 14, 363-370.

Whipbirds

The river trail was filled today with the glorious song of the Eastern Whipbird, the hooping of the pheasant-like Coucal and the chattering of flycatchers, wrens and other LBBs (Litte Brown Birds). The Whipbird's sonorous whistle echoes across the valley. Mostly, says the birdbook, they are heard but not seen so it was a special moment watching a pair of these smalll birds hop through the branches, chattering and singing (Frith, 1976).

The clever musicality of the Whipbird is created by both male and female singing together. The male starts off with his characteristic smooth 'Whip!', then the female completes the call with a high-pitched, drawn-out and beautiful 'choo-eeeeeee'. And here they were, the two of them, looking splendid, their head crests raised slightly, their olive feathered backs blending into the leafy canopy, and their fan-like tail swishing back and forth dancing among the branches.

Whipbirds are very active but shy. They forage in the leaf litter and logs lying on the ground searching for insects and larvae. And the birdbook reveals something else that's special about the Whipbird - they are 'an ancient group of species that are found no where else' (Frith, 1976: 396).

There's been a lot of rain lately. It's flooding in many locations across southern Queensland causing havoc. Here the river is running high, fast and brown. Lots of people are out and about jogging, rowing, walking their dogs, and as their dogs splash in the shallows between the Mangroves, we talk about the height of the river, the very high tidal flows and the return of the wet.

Looking up at what were sad and seemingly dead trees a few weeks ago, clumps of new shoots have begun sprouting from the branches, while the birds heralding the rain, the new growth and the revitalised life along the riverbank.

Reference
Frith HJ, 1976, Reader's Digest Complete Book of Australian Birds, Surry Hills, Reader's Digest Services Pty Ltd.

Black, White and Bountiful

I heard a kind of bark from up in the eucalypt trees. There it is again. I look up bewildered; can't see anything by leaves. Then suddenly, from the canopy, an Ibis lifts off and flies down the river. An Ibis is no small bird but this bird was invisible in the tree as if its black and white feathers merged into the leafy cover.

So I began to think about all the black and white birds along the riverbank - Magpies, Mudlarks, Willie Wagtails, Currawongs, Butcher Birds - and wondered how being black and white creates the illusion of camouflage and blurs the creature into the background. Fiona Sunquist (1996) had the same thought. In an article entitled 'The colorful world of black white - black and white animals', she points out that many animal and bird species throughout the world wear black and white costumes. First, it's to grab attention and tell potential predators that danger awaits them if they tackle the black and whites. Second, it's to hide; the colours act as a disguise so the creature can't be seen against the undergrowth or leafy canopy. Sunquist says:

'Such concealment is all a matter of context. Jays and magpies have black-and-white feathers that are highly conspicuous in the open. But when a bird dives for cover, its outline vanishes, and the white bars and patches look more like splashes of sunlight among the leaves.' My experience exactly.

Then there's the enticing black and white striped Carpet Snake but their vanishing perhaps has more to do with them eating the poisonous cane toads rather than being in hiding, waiting to pounce. And animals from Pandas to Lemurs, Shunks to Zebras, Orcas to Colubus Monkeys, many of them serioiusly endangered in their wild, use their colour scheme to deceive.

Other birds use their colour to attract. The other birds along the river today displayed a feast of colour. Rainbow Lorikeets. Galahs pink and grey, Red Wrens. White Cockatoos, Brush Turkeys showing off their red and yellow. Male birds dress in feathered finery to attract a mate. Bower birds build wee nests and decorate them. Spendid plumage and sexuality go hand in hand.

Black and white birds, and the glossy black Raven, have something in common. Perhaps it is that they are more fearsome and their colour scheme is a marker to beware. Today when the whole gang arrived for their breakfast, Butcher Birds + brown baby, Currawongs, Magpies + babies, Raven + baby, I thought how wonderful it is to have these beautiful beautiful creatures visiting and how sad, that even walking back from the river, aborists were cutting down more and more trees.

Reference
Sunquist F, 1996, 'The Colorful World of Black White - Black and White Animals,' International Wildlife, May-June.

Water Rights

David Groenfeldt is the Executive Director of the Santa Fe Watershed Association in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Santa Fe River he cares for has recently been declared the most endangered river in the US.

When I first spoke to David Groenfelt he told me something amazing. It was a different way of seeing a river system and the relationship between humans and the water.

Humans believe they have rights to river water. For drinking, sewerage, irrigation, and recreation. They think this becuase they pay for access to water in the form of water rights. They have a right to the flowing stream's water or the meandering river's water. But what happens when their use rights drain the river and the surrounding ecosystem of its lifeblood? The outcome, a drying or dried up river and a paradox where the river has no rights, even to its own water.

Taking this outcome to its extreme - how much would a river pay for access rights to its own water? As can be seen in many areas across the globe, the river pays with its life.

Over the weekend the media reported two damaging river stories. The first in The Australian newspaper told the terrible story of how the parts of Murray River have turned to acid. The effect - an acid river that brings death to animals, birds, fish, frogs and insects that drink from and live in its hazardous waters. River Red Gums and other riverbank vegetation is also slowly dying. There is no relief in sight.

The acidic water is caused by the drought and over-irrigation taking the precious flow. The article says acid waters occur in areas that used to flood regularly but now these areas have become dry. The low river levels have allowed the iron pyrite in the soil (a by-product of decaying organic matter) to come into contact witih oxygen. This process acts like a chemical reaction forming sulphuric acid. The solution? Rain and stronger river flows.

The second media story focused on the Darling River. The ABC Landline journalist stood in the heart of the river, in sand and stones, sadly not flowing water, and spoke about its plight. Interviewees on the program not only mentioned the huge economic losses to the farming and tourism sectors, they also talked about the disappearance of water birds to the area. And their loss of place.

A dried up river, once the life-bringing waterway of inland Queensland and NSW, is suffering from an over-abundance of irrigation licences for inappropriate agriculture. One of the inteviewees put it this way:

'In the years before 2006 we had what I call the cotton drought. The irrigators upstream took so much water out of the river that we just didn't get the flows through that we should have got, and we didn't get the small floods through that are essential for the flood plains.' (Barney Stevens, Darling River Action Group, 2007).

Other farmer interviewees simply said the river is dying. A huge huge cost when humans do not recognise this simple need: that rivers need rights to their own water.

Reference
Wallace R, 2008, 'River of death where water turns into acid,' The Australian, Jan 12, 2008
Willacy M, 2007, 'Community rallies to save the Darling River,' ABCTV Landline, Jan 13, 2008, originally aired on June 17, 2007.

Life for Rivers

Rivers for Life is a very insightful book covering the need for global care of water and river systems for both people and nature. Written by Sandra Postel and Brian Richter (2003) from the Global Water Policy Project, Rivers of Life's first chapter is titled: Where Have All the Rivers Gone? It documents the impact wrought by human development through changing infrastructure (such as dams, hydro-projects, dredging etc.) on rivers, wetlands and other freshwater ecosystems, so much so that the health of the river and the plant and animal species that dwell in and along the river are threatened. The authors estimate that worldwide that 'a significant proportion of fresh water species ...including 20 percent of freshwater fish species ... are at risk of extinction or are already extinct.' (2003:3)

Healthy river systems are fast disappearing. But at the same time there is a host of activists, river and wetlands restorers who are working to re-create river health and wellbeing. Postel and Richter advise rivers should be valued for their own sake not only for the services they provide the human community. They comment: 'Rivers are more than conduits for water. They are complex systems that do complicated work.' (4)

What's needed for the restoration of river systems is all the scientific research that's being done as well as great encouragement for people to care for local waterways. One suggestion is to tell river stories from the present and the past, e.g. stories from indigenous communities and from the early days of white settlement when cotton growing, sugar cane farms and cattle stations spread out along the river. People may become more aware, more engaged and perhaps more motivated to take action to protect the river environs.

Talking to people I meet on the trail teaches me so much about the river and its history. We discuss the birds we've seen, the experiences of flood times, how tough it was for the early settlers in clearing the luscious rainforest for farmland and more generally, about the threat of encroaching development. And we work together to care for the precious bushland. Each day I pull up a number of noxious weeds but with the recent fantastic rain, the weeds are growing faster and taller than my ability to rip them up them; it seems impossible to combat their spread.

Postel and Richter are optimistic that people will learn to appreciate the natural environment including rivers and so might replicate the 'complicated work' that rivers do by lobbying for river education and river health. To this end the authors make a serious plea:

'Unless human communities begin to adapt to natural cycles and coexist with aquatic communities, those natural communities will disappear and the ecological work they perform will be lost.' (202).

They call for an ethic of stewardship which respects 'the beauty and mystery' of the natural world while at the same time demanding from governments a more aware, community-embedded active rivercare program.

One of the case sudies from Rivers of Life is the Brisbane River and its deteriorating health. Postel and Richter point to the extent of land clearing where now only 14 percent of the whole river catchment area where most people live 'remains uncleared' (133). They document a litany of river impacts that have severely affected the river flow, from construction of dams to changes in waterway vegetation which interferes with 'shading and temperature controls' raising the likelihood of 'algal blooms and lowering dissolved oxygen levels.' (135, citing Arthington et al, 2000).

The list of concerns continues with the loss of biodiversity and subsequent loss of habitat for bird, animal and fish species, including the platypus.

To combat these problems (or are they horrors?), a number of counter strategies are suggested. It requires concerted and combined action among all stakeholders and residents but of course, such suggestions to restore healthy river systems may (or invariably do) bring conflict, as ecological demands can disturb policy and development desires and outcomes. Postel and Richter (2003:137) write:

'This conflict between managing the Brisbane River for human purposes versus meeting the river's own needs for water is one that arises on virtually every river. ... Complete restoration of the Brisbane's natural flow regime would likely cause too much disruption to landowners and water users to be publicly acceptable.'

In the end such conflict is played out between humans and nature where nature's voice is rarely heard. At the moment the Butcher Bird is sitting on the verandah singing the most glorious chorus and sounding, on occasion, like the Magpie, the Kookaburra and of course, itself. I love that. The very melodic refrain of the Butcher Bird reminds me how important it is to value local river systems and trees and get involved in that complicated work of the ecosystem of which, we humans too, are part.

References
Arthington AH et al, 2000, Environmental Flow Requirements of the Brisbane River Downstream from Wivenhoe Dam, Brisbane, Queensland: South East Queensland Water Corporation, and Centre for Catchment and In-Stream Research of Griffith University.
Postel S and B Richter, 2003, Rivers For Life: Managing Water for People and Nature, Washington, DC: Island Press.

Blue Faced and Pugnacious

The bird book says the Blue-faced Honeyeater is pugnacious, especially when it is caught stealing twigs from other birds' nests (Frith, 1976:468).

It was raining lightly as I walked towards the river. It has been raining on and off for a few days now which has brought life-giving moisture to this very dry region in SE Queensland. Out of the corner of my eye I felt a presence in the bush beside me and turned to see a splendid bird, wearing an eye patch of irridescent cobalt blue and a golden-olive feathered cloak. Yet as I read the description of this bird I discovered that not everyone has that opinion. Blue-faced Honeyeaters are also known as the 'Banana Bird' because of their predilection for fruit and as a consequence can damage crops and are regarded as pests. But in the riverine undergrowth this bird looked magnificient.

Sometimes drizzle, sometimes downpour, the rain is delicious. The damp dull atmosphere has pervaded the river valley where the sound of bird song is intense as it pierces the grey morning. Sharper somehow. The very melodic Butcher Bird, the dramatic chatter of Wille Wagtail, the delicious carolling of Magpies, the haunting calls of Currawong and Raven, the river is a sound feast.

Ecophilosopher and eco-musician David Rothenberg has explored the history and practice of birdsong in his book 'Why Birds Sing: A Journey into the Mystery of Bird Song' (2005) and says they sing: 'Because they can and because they must.... Songs are used to attract mates and defend territories, but the form is much more than function. Nature is full of beauty, and of music.' Listen to his delighful musical partnership with these beautiful sounds especially the beautifully lyrical Lyre Bird Suite, where the Lyre Bird's display of myriad forest sounds is spectacular and blends charismatically with the human musicianship.

Rothenberg's musical relationship with birds is described as 'interspecies' but could there also be a 'sonorific' relationship of the interspecies kind between river and bird, rain and river, as well as human and nature? In an essay entitled 'Interspecies Music', Rothenberg reflecting on the process of partnering with nature quotes the long-time animal communications and whale song researcher Jim Nollman:

'Treat the music as an invitation. Visualize the bond of time and place as a sanctuary filled with music. Feel what it means to get on whale time. Don't try to communicate; remain humble to the fact that music — especially "beautiful music" — is a judgment call. That rare bird known as the interspecies musician learns to meet the animal halfway, two species willing to play in the same band, if but for a moment. It frolics with our basic conception of what it means to be both human and animal.'

The interconnection between human and nature is fluid, boundaryless, an intermerging of one in the other and the other in one resplendent in the magical symphony between Lyre Bird and David Rothenberg. Have a listen.

References
Frith HJ, 1976, Reader's Digest Complete Book of Australian Birds, Surry Hills, NSW, Reader's Digest Services Pty Ltd.
Rothenberg D, 2005, Why Birds Sing: A Journey into the Mystery of Bird Song, New York, Basic Books.

Spiders Catch the Sun

The river valley is filled with sparkling jewels and precious metals. The trail is awash with emerald, peridot and jade scattered above the the thick brown mud along the mangrove-hugging creek and interwoven within the steep and rocky embankment.

Over the past few weeks the tall Eucalypts have been shedding their bark. It falls to the ground in thin strands, sometimes hanging down in long strips as if the old bark is flowing from the tree right into the earth. Beneath the old skin is revealed a brand new trunk of lustrous bronze glistening in the sunlight. Also shining are the new leaves sprouting from the gum and wattle saplings and other bushes - sometimes glowing a bright copper, sometimes a luscious deep ruby, sometimes a blue-tinged silver and sometimes a brilliant lime-gold.

Walking along the pathway I duck to avoid the precious gold and silver threads of intricate spider webs woven between the branchlets. Within the web dead insects are wrapped as treasures; they hang from the web's centre as the spider sits and waits ... for more prey perhaps? As the sunlight catches its golden cord I'm reminded of a comment from the biomimicry biologist Janine Benyus (2005) who suggests that spiders have valuable lessons to impart. She points out that:

'A spider makes silk ... that is five times stronger, ounce for ounce, than steel. It's resilient and tough - a true miracle fibre. Even more incredible, a spider uses flies and crickets as raw material and creates the fibre at body temperature (a life-friendly temperature), because the manufacturing plant is the spider's body. Furthermore, the fibre is biodegradable, so the spider can eat the web to make more web.'

The clever spinning spider inspires people like Benyus to create biodegradable, sustainable and useful products. This is done, she says, by entering 'into deep conversation with organisms' which 'absolutely fills you with awe'. The first step for scientists is not to rush into research but first to reflect on the evocative questions she poses: 'How does nature teach? How does nature learn? How does nature heal? How does nature communicate?' In the process of contemplation, Benyus advises a respectful listening to the natural world and an acknowledgement of thanks for the inspiration it offers. This engenders an ethic of care. She says:

'Seeing nature as model, measure, and mentor changes the very way you view and value the natural world. Instead of seeing nature as warehouse, you begin to see her as teacher. Instead of valuing what you can extract from her, you value what you can learn from her. And this changes everything. ... When what we learn improves how we live, we grow grateful, and that leads to the last step in the path: stewardship and caretaking, a practical thanksgiving for what we've learned.'

This practical awareness of the spiders' gifts has been implemented by tribal cultures in the Asia-Pacific region who gather spider fibre to make fish nets and traps and capture small birds with the sticky web fibres. And I was always told that spider webs can be used to stem the flow of blood on wounds.

More recently the strength and elasticity of the Golden Orb Spiders' silky web have led scientists to research the properties of spider silk and ask how spiders actually create their silky home. They are looking to transform the spiders' clever spinning into military use as armour (e.g. bullet proof material) as well as creating their own forms of synthetic biosilk for use in textiles and other products like fishing line through the use of genetic modification (see: Borchardt, Christian Science Monitor, 2004).

For instance, Japanese scientists, reports the Times of India (2007), have genetically modified silkworms to produce soft silky socks with which they 'aim to revitalize both the wearers' feet with possible anti-ageing effects and Japan's waning silk and socks industry'. While in 2002, the New York Times (2002) reported that goats had been genetically adapted with a gene from the Golden Orb Weaver to produce milk laced with spider silk (See Osborne, 2002, an article well worth a read).

Reading about the scientific and military uses of spider thread I think again about the biomimicry perspective of Janine Benyus who advises on the need for gratitude towards nature for its teaching and guidance and wonder if her perspective incorporates the questionable ethics and morality of the spiders' genetically modified science and military journey.

References
Benyus J, 2005, 'Genius of Nature,' Resurgence, 230.
Borchardt JK, 2004, 'Soon, Spider-silk Togs and Mussel Glue?' Christian Science Monitor, Aug 26, 2004.
Osborne L, 2002, 'Got Silk,' New York Times, June 16, 2002

Sylvan Riverscapes

The Brisbane River is home to the Turrbal and Yugarbul-Jagarra peoples who created pathways along the river valley linking ceremonial sites known as 'bora'. According to Kerkhove (1985:4) these pathways ran the length of the river and 'early settlers remembered seeing Brisbane Aboriginals marching in hundreds along these, or saw them tracking along them in South Brisbane at night with a blazing torch in one hand.' (cited in To Travel is to Learn, 2004).

In a paper on Aboriginal history along the river valley, local historian Ros Kidd (2000) writes that the river and surrounding waters 'provided bountiful and beautiful environment', a 'sylvan' somewhat 'idyllic' existence prior to European settlement. Aboriginal people were depicted as:

'fishing from bark canoes made from broad sheets of stringy bark or casting their heart-shaped towrow nets to encircle shoals of mullet. Others used vines to climb the trees for possum and koala which were despatched with stone tomahawks. Women and children dived in lagoons for lily roots, dug yams and collected the edible fern roots. Some sat on the banks weaving their baskets and bags from the pink and green swamp grasses while youngsters frolicked in the shallows.'

Then the river terrain was thickly wooded, swampy in places with many creeks flowing into the river. Wild fowl, fish and eel were plentiful, Bush Turkeys patrolled the undergrowth, Parrots flocked overhead, Pelicans fished the shallows while 'Ducks and [S]wans in their hundreds trawled the waterways' (Meston, 1923 cited in Kidd, 2000).

This wondrous sight is a stark reminder of what has been lost. Kidd reports Aborigines in the mid-19th century being able to pull up fishing nets filled with fish in just 'a few minutes' (Bartley, 1896:247). This was the time when the river was clear, and even right up to the 1930s, there were accounts of being able to see the riverbed 5 to 6 metres below (Young 1990, in Gutteridge, Haskins & Davey, 1996).

The abundance and natural beauty of the river has been irrevocably changed although swathes of its beauty remains, even in the heart of the city such as along the Mangrove Walk. But similar riverbank green spaces have been and are being burried under roadways, high rise development and economic progress. The spirit of this flowing place has been paved over but its spirit still thrives - in the memories, stories and rituals of the original custodians of this riverland and in the beauty of the river itself that flourishes despite an pro-development attitude that longs to smother its natural beauty.

An example of the kind of thing that is happening along the river comes from a recent ABC Radio Eye program, 'Tree poisoning, weeds and Australian native plants: Watching the Trees'. The program explored the trend in some Sydney harbour-view suburbs of people poisoning trees that hinder residents' views of the water. As a result, local authorities have installed CCTV cameras to try to catch the tree vandals and erected signs warning of heavy financial penalties incurred for destroying local trees.

Compare this action of seeing tree poisoners as vandals to the action of the local councils along the Brisbane River valley which allow unfettered tree felling in the name of development. Shade, amenity and beauty are sadly not often incorporated into urban planning decisions that affect both natural and community capital. Notions of beauty are all to frequently left out of discussions on resource management and sustainability. So a development or environmental change might be deemed sustainable even if the natural beauty of a place is destroyed.

The sylvan riverscape continues to be threatened to some extent, perhaps, because non-Aboriginal resource users and managers may not take heed of river stories told by Aboriginal people and by the river itself. This frame of reverence is sadly outside the domain of non-indigenous concepts of sustainability and environmental and social impact assessment.

Reverence, honour, respect, beauty - the incorporation of these values would shift resource management practices on land and sea to a different kind of awareness and action.

A few years ago I did some research on what was happening in Cape York and realised that my lack of awareness of indigenous issues led me to search for a description of Queensland's north as beautiful in the belief that if it is so beautiful then it must be worth saving. But there was only one occasion (that I found) where Noel Pearson (1995), now Director of the Cape York Institute, actually described the landscape of Cape York in physical, western terms. He depicted it as 'teeming with mangrove swamps, towering dunes, long stands of whispering casuarinas and groves of rustling pandanus, the buttressed, fragrant rainforests, the jewel islands and shimmering beaches'. It sounds so beautiful but I realised that my desire to reveal how the landscape looks is culturally-determined. For Pearson the land holds a far deeper significance:

'There are incredibly detailed and subtle laws governing how people should behave in particular places: in what direction should one expectorate; in whose company can one talk; which dialect or synonyms to employ in the presence of certain people; which foods are forbidden in certain places at certain times of the year to certain people; how one should sit in specific places; ... one’s personal relationship with particular animals and land forms.'

These are essential truths. Sacred values are rooted in the land and in relationship with kin and country. These sacred values are embedded in the tidal exchange of fresh and salt waters in the flowing beauty that is the Brisbane River.

References
Bartley N, 1896, Australian Pioneers and Reminiscences together with portraits of some of the founders of Australia, Gordon and Gotch.
Gutteridge, Haskins & Davey Pty Ltd, 1996, Task M2 State of the Brisbane River and Moreton Bay and Waterways Brisbane River Management Group, Brisbane River and Moreton Bay Wastewater Management Study, Working Draft Version 1.4.
Kerkhove R, 1985, West End to Woollangabba: The Early Aboriginal History of the District, Brisbane, Foundation of Aboriginal and Island Research and Action.
Kidd R, 2000, Aboriginal History of the Princess Alexandra Hospital Site, Diamantina Health Care Museum Association.
Meston A, 1923, ‘100 Years - Black Man to White Settlement’, The Daily Mail, December 1, 1923.
Pearson N, 1995, 'Cape York Peninsula: the land needs its people,' Paper presented to the Wild Agendas Conference, Sydney University, July, 1995.

River Beauty, River Threat

River of Words is an annual event that gathers poetry and art inspired by rivers from children across the globe. This year the group chose a deeply insightful poem 'Rivers' written by seven year old José Perez from Florida as the winning riverpoem for 2007.

'Rivers splatter,
hitting rocks below.
But don’t be afraid,
there is poetry
deep inside each crevice.'

River of Words (ROW) has developed curriculum to assist teachers assist children to learn about river systems in their local bioregion. They encourage the development of local knowledge, as they say, 'to help you bring your watershed’s cultural and natural history alive for your students and community.'

On the ROW website is an article by the poet and deep ecologist Gary Snyder titled 'Coming into the Watershed'. Snyder writes:

'A watershed is a marvelous thing to consider: this process of rain falling, streams flowing and oceans evaporating causes every molecule of water on earth to make the complete trip once every two million years.' Two million years!

Two million years is length of the revolving water cycle and the ongoing relationship of living river to living ocean. This dynamic interconnection over such a long timeframe is now severely threatened. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has documented the litany of threat and disaster in it report World’s Top 10 Rivers at Risk' (2007). Two of the rivers singled out are the Murray and Darling rivers, the lifeblood of this nation.

In addition to structural and flow concerns, the report outlines that another major threat to the Murray-Darling river system comes from invasive fish (e.g. carp) and plant species. For example, it mentions that in Australia, the numbers of feral fish species emanating from the aquarium trade has increased from 22 to 34 in recent years.

The Brisbane River is small fry in comparison although it too has its fair share of feral threats - some of them human. Recent media reports have raised the ire of locals through their focus on one aggressive visitor to the river, the famed Bull Shark. Locals (interviewed by the media) are decidely edgy about what is considered 'one of the most dangerous sharks in the world' (ABC Catalyst, 2003).

What is so special about the Bull Shark is its remarkable ability to live in both fresh and salt water as well as the distances it travels upstream, up to 80 kms from Moreton Bay. Fishers say they can catch 8 to 10 sharks on a good day (see Ausfish, 2004). In 2006, the Courier Mail reported a commercial fisher netting 64 Bull Sharks in the Logan River, south of Brisbane. One fisher reported: 'The sharks were so thick, it was like the water was boiling.'

Earlier this year the Daily Telegraph (UK) carried an article about the dangers of Bull Sharks and how Queensland locals are dealing with them. I wonder who is monitoring these aggressive actions against these creatures.

'There are thousands upon thousands of them ... You could catch 10 a night if you wanted to. They'll bite your boat, chew your engine. People catch them as they're cooking their snags [sausages] and prawns on the barbie....

Another local commented that he's 'caught a dozen sharks from his sixth-floor balcony in between playing video games and watching television. 'We sit in the lounge room with the rods set up and play the PlayStation, waiting for the bites.' While a third fisher sets up his fishing gear then 'retreats to his living room to watch DVDs' until he hears there's a bite on the line.

The Daily Telegraph article continued: 'Fisheries officials say they are opposed to a shark cull and people must learn to live with the potential man-eaters. 'They have as much right to be in the water as we do,' said Jeff Krause, district manager of the Queensland Boating and Fisheries Patrol'.

But the concern is that there is little attention paid to this living room culling of these special animals. Are there bag limits on taking Sharks? And how is it patrolled when people are fishing from their sofas?

Yesterday my friend told me she'd seen dolphins upstream in the river and her children were very excited. What a river! Sharks, dolphins, beauty and danger. In the words of a seven year old from Florida:

'But don’t be afraid,
there is poetry
deep inside each crevice.'
José Perez