River Religion

Connecting to the river is part of a daily pilgrimage, a spiritual and sacred practice of homage. Watching the Spoonbiil slurp through the mud along Sandy Creek is a measure of reverence for this place and its extended ecosystem from watershed to ocean. The water flowing on the tidal exchange between fresh and salt is the ritualistic dance of this river religion. The sound and sight of birds, lizards, skinks, dog wallkers and joggers, rowers and kayakers, all combine in an expression of what the early sociologist Emile Durkheim referred to as 'collective effervescence' - a religious fervour that emerges in society during periods of social change or upheaval.

At a time of increasing awareness of global warming and the need for pro-environmental behaviours to transcend the rush towards devastation, the notion of collective effervescence is celebratory.

Present day theorists of religion such as Gary Bouma (Australian Soul, 2006) and Danièle Hervieu-Léger (Religion as a Chain of Memory, 2000) note the shift towards a more experiential embodied quest for the sacred in post-industrial society. Hervieu-Léger suggests that the hierarchy, dogma and social institutionalisation of mainline religions has dwindled in the spread of what was seen as secularisation but, as Bouma has observed, there is a lingering spiritual attraction that bubbles along in the hinterland of organised religion as well as through the diversity of emergent individualised expressions of self-styled spiritualities.

On one hand the upsurge in religion as experience has spawned an outflow of emotionally-based worship; on the other, it has given rise to a range of spiritual dimensions from ecclectic self-serve new age practices to a deep engagement in ritual magick, various dynamic forms of nature religion and an ecological revisioning of mainstream scriptures and religious services.

The river and the extended ecosystem offer a stage for the outpouring of collective effervescence. The overhead shriek of the cockatoos as they descend on the eucalypt branches and tree hollows, the high-pitched delicious call of the Butcher Bird, the purring whirr of the Black Faced Cuckoo Shreik, the clever sprouting Mangroves which line the riverbank - these encounters with the wilder parts of urbania can be seen as an upsurge of effervescent feeling through mutual interaction between human and nature.

Hervieu-Léger (2000:52) citing WIlliam James says that the essence of religion is found in inner experience, the wondrous emotional connection 'at once collective and individual'. What is important, she says, is the process of religious engagement - first comes the intensity of feeling which emerges from connection with the sacred and then, in terms of organised religion, the sacred is vesselised, contained and rationalised into beliefs, rituals and teachings.

Breaking down the steps in an ecological sense removes the distinction between feeling and teaching. Wild and sacred places have the power to excite, to stimulate feelings of intensity, insight and personal transformation. They teach not only about the ecosystem services, they create an opportunity for learning about ourselves. Borrowing from Hervieu-Léger (2000:60), there is a mutual involvement of the sacred and religion, an emotional renewal that surfaces on the wavelets of this precious stretch of the Brisbane River.

References
Bouma GD, 2006, Australian Soul: Religion and Spirituality for the 21st Century, Melbourne, Cambridge University Press.
Hervieu-Léger D, 1993, 2000, Religion as a Chain of Memory, Cambridge, Polity Press.

Offering Flowers in Courtship

There was a flash of red dancing in the branches. Amidst the lush green under-growth, a Red-backed Fairy Wren was displaying his magnificent scarlet cloak. The birdbook tells me that his deep red feathers will fade after a few months of sun and rain and this has led to the suppostition that there are, in fact, two red-backed species - one wearing scarlet, the other a deep crimson. But these differences could be due, the birdbook says, to the condition of their plumage (Frith, 1976:416).

A couple of days earlier I'd found a small delicately-woven nest lying on the trail. The image of the Wren's nest from the birdbook looks remarkably similar. Wrens create an oval-shaped home from little strips of grass and that seems to be just the same as the empty nest that lay on the path.

According to Emu, the publication of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union, during the Wren's courtship, these brightly-frocked males carry pink or red flower petals, displaying them towards their chosen partner.

In an observational study of of this petal-carrying behaviour among both wild and avairy-reared birds, it was found that male birds display flower petals towards the fertile female. The researchers concluded that the petal-carrying behaviour is mainly an inter-sexual event to attract the female, although in 10 percent of cases, the male birds enacted the same behaviour towards other males, leading to the suggestion that it could also be an intra-sexual aggressive display (Karubian and Alvarado, 2003).

Along the trail I meet another riverwalker who's also taking photographs. As I stroke his graceful greyhound, we chat about the Brahminy Kite that just swooped low over the water and the abundant birdlife that dwells in this special and sacred place.

References
Frith HJ, 1976, Reader's Digest Complete Book of Australian Birds, Surry Hills, NSW, Reader's Digest Services Pty Ltd.
Karubian J and A Alvarado, 2003, 'Testing the function of petal-carrying in the Red-backed Fairy-wren (Malurus melanocephalus),' Emu, 103, 1, 87-92.

The Sacred Kingfisher

It seems death stalks the trail this week. Lying on the side of the path was a bunch of turquoise feathers. I picked up the small Sacred Kingfisher and held it in the palm of my hand admiring the exquisite bright blue green mantle then placed it in the earth. I'd been watching a pair of these birds for weeks. Often they'd sit on the electricity wires, the same spot every day, watching for prey. Now only one remained.

However the bird book tells me these creatures are usually solitary, only pairing up to breed. They build their nest in tree hollows or by burrowing into termite mounds or river and other earthen banks and can have three to six eggs.

Sacred Kingfishers are widespread across coastal Australia. Some migrate from New Zealand; others travel from northern Australia to Victoria and Tasmania. The result of one of these journeys to Brunswick, a Melbourne suburb, created great excitement and spawned an annual festival dedicated to The Return of the Sacred Kingfisher.

In the mid 1970s a group of dedicated environmentalists took over a rubbish tip on the edge of the Merri Creek in Brunswick. and CERES was born. There they created an oasis of community gardens, permaculture, alternative technology projects, environmental educational programs, an organic farm, native plant nursery and a haven of inspirational green activities. The creek was restored, replanted and restoried. And one day, back in 1992, a Sacred Kingfisher visited. They'd not been seen in the area for 20 years.

From then on the return of this tiny sacred bird has been celebrated at the end of November. Hundreds of school children, story tellers, dancers and songsters recreate the story of the Sacred Kingfisher's return to the Merri Creek. CERES says that the ceremony in homage of this tiny bird has 'become a symbolic community ritual, connecting people to place through the creative expression of our environmental, artistic and cultural significance.'

Maya Ward who has walked the Merri Creek (and the Yarra River) from sea to source has written 'The Story of the Sacred Kingfisher' (2006). She ends her watery journey along the Merri Creek with this poignant story of the Sacred Kingfisher and its very timely return to the CERES haven.

'Once upon a time, in a southerly land between mountains and bay, was the land of the Kulin, where the Wurundjeri lived. Their ancestors, Bunjil the Wedge Tailed Eagle and Branbeal the rainbow had created this land, and the people sang the songs to sustain the land, to thank the ancestors for creating this bountiful world. And when the people died, the Sacred Kingfisher in her clothes of sky and cloud flew away at the end of summer with the people’s spirit into the sky, while their body and soul returned to the earth. And in spring the Sacred Kingfisher returned, to nest and rest, to feed and breed on the banks of the Merri Merri, while the Wurundjeri harvested eels and blackfish, cumbungi and water ribbons.

But then one day strangers came to the land of the Kulin, who did not know lore or right behavior. The strangers stole the land from the Wurundjeri, and banished them to beyond the mountains. But the Wurundjeri walked back over the mountains, and so when the strangers had been in the land for many generations, and were starting to open their eyes and unblock their ears, to see and hear of the wrongs they had caused, the Wurundjeri were there with the stories of how this land came to be.

And so, after many many years unspoken, together the Wurundjeri and the strangers retold the story of Bunjil and Branbeal, and of how Waa the crow created a whirlwind to take them into the sky, so that they could view their creation. The people who were no longer strangers sang the song calling Branbeal to bring colour to the world. But she only comes after rain, so when the drenched singers had dried themselves, Branbeal the rainbow arced over the Village Green.

I know why she is called the Sacred Kingfisher.' (Ward, 2006).

Reference:
Ward M, 2006, The Story of the Sacred Kingfisher, http://www.freshwater.net.au/community/melbourne_freshwater_individuals.html#maya

The Eel

The metre long dark brown Eel was lying immobile in the middle of the trail. At times I've seen fishers at the creek but until now have not encountered their discards. Perhaps they just forgot to take the Eel with them or perhaps they didn't think to put it back its watery home. I read that Eels can live up to 48 hours out of the water because of their very oily skin; they can also travel short distances across land - slithering from place to place in search of a new pond or pool if theirs is drying up. I didn't know how long this one had been out of the water so, hoping it would revive, I picked it up and placed it back in the creek.

The day before I'd seen another Eel swimming in a nearby lake, so finding one more Eel told me something about the creatures who live here but are often out of sight.

Eels live for 50 to 60 years and have an amazing life story to tell. They live as both saltwater and freshwater creatures. And throughout their lives they journey vast distances, up to 6000 kilometres, from their ocean home in the middle of the Pacific (for Australian species) to the particular river, creek and pool where their relatives had once lived. They find their way back, it's believed, due to their remarkable ability to recognise the specific chemistry of the water from their parents' original freshwater pool site (Planet Patrol, 2007).

When they start their journey from the ocean they're known as Elvers. These tiny leaf-like creatures drift on the currents for two to three years but, it's said, only about one percent of them actually make it back to their freshwater refuge. According to British research there has been a huge decline in the numbers of young Eels reaching estuaries and rivers, estimated at over 90 percent in the past two decades (BBC Science & Nature, 2004).

As the Eels move from waterplace to waterplace they also shapeshift from the tiny Elver transforming into a translucent juvenile 'glass Eel' and eventually to the lustrous dark brown Eel I met on the trail. After another 20 or so years living in local creeks, lakes and ponds the Eels hear the call of the ocean. They need to return to their spawming grounds to breed. And then they die.

Journeying across such vast distances is dangerous. Dams act as barriers stopping the Eels moving up and downstream but sometimes stairways are created to help Eels and other migrating fish to reach their destination. Toxic pollution, agricultural, chemical and sewerage runoff also damages the Eel and other river species. Overfishing is another problem. In Brisbane and other areas in SE Queensland, urban development can also affect the Eel population. By filling in channels, swamps and pools, building weirs, disturbing riverbank ecologies and water quality the Eels can lose their pathways to the ocean.

Along Australia's east coast there are two types Eel, the longfinned Eel (Anguilla reinhardtii) which enjoys tropical environments and the shortfinned Eel (Anguilla australis) which lives in temperate waters. The ABC Science informative website says that: 'Longfinned Eels prefer flowing rivers and creeks more than the calm ponds and lakes the Shortfinned tends to inhabit'.

Longfinned and long lived, these Eels need safeguarding. A lot of attention is now going into breeding Eels in fishfarms at the 'glass Eel' stage. If you are interested have a look at work being conducted at the Bribie Island Aquaculture Research Centre in Queensland (e.g. Langdon and Collins, 2000).

References
Langdon SA and AL Collins, 2000, 'Quantification of the maximal swimming performance of Australasian glass eels, Anguilla australis and Anguilla reinhardtii, using a hydraulic flume swimming chamber,' New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research, 34: 629-636

Love the planet not fear its demise

'Arguably, the challenge of the spiritual is the most significant we face in our contempor-ary world, through it may not be seen as such by many.' This sweeping statement by authors Clive and Jane Erricker (2001:xv) headlines their edited volume Contemporary Spiritualities: Social and Religious Contexts.

They arrive at this challenging point through the assumption that, 'it is necessary for every individual to establish a place of belonging in society'. But a sense of belonging, particularly to place, can give rise to inter-place conflicts when place takes on the mantle of ownership.

To discuss these contentious issues, the authors suggest spirituality is one pathway towards conflict resolution or at least is a way of reconfiguring the impact of conflicts:

'[W]e are not suggesting that the spiritual is a panacea for contemporary global conflict, an alchemical means for producing global harmony. Rather...different conceptions of the spiritual are strong motivating forces within the politics of human communication ...we ignore this at our peril' (2001:xvii).

Their frame of interaction and their desire for mutual understanding and dialogue is broad. But to narrow or highlight their intention, Erricker and Erricker define the spiritual as 'an act or process of relationship: with others, the divine, the natural world, places the emphasis on growth, reflection, responsibility, altruism and thus even denial' (xviii).

This is a significant undertaking - to promote engagement with and reflection on the other - the earth, the refugee, the person suffering poverty, the drought affected farmer, the depeleted ocean affected fisher, and/or the polluted river. The process begins with reflection then shifts to responsibility and altruism on one hand, but can lead to denial on the other, when social and environmental justice seem too hard to achieve or the individual feels too powerless to effect change.

Similar issues were raised on this morning's BBC program 'Heart and Soul'. The radio documentary discussed the relationship between religion and environment but in the macro sense. It argued that the environment movement has become society's newest religion as it preaches a moral and ethical way of living, and in a secular society, seems to have replaced mainline religion with its plea to take care of the planet. But as well as the message of hope and responsibility, the program suggested that the environment movement also preaches an apocalyptic outcome - the end of the world as we know it.

Religious organisations have, at least in Australia, tended to overlook the ecological imperative although this is slowly changing with policies and action platforms appearing in the Catholic, Anglican, Uniting, Baptist churches and other mainstream religions. At the end of 2006 Australia's religious leaders met with the Climate Institute and produced the Common Belief Report: Australia's Faith Communities on Climate Change. This interfaith group includes: Aboriginal leaders, Anglicans, Australian Christian Lobby, Baptists, Buddhists, Bahais, Catholics, Evangelical Alliance, Greek Orthodox, Hindus, Jews, Lutherans, Muslims, Salvation Army, Sikhs and the Uniting Church. A couple of weeks ago these religions combined to lobby the federal government to take environmental issues more seriously and all but the Catholic Church joined this entreaty (ABC News, 2007).

Climate change issues fill the headlines but does it make people more active in taking care of the environment, the river, the bay or their local place community?

The BBC program made the point that the environment movement has, in the past, sometimes ignored the human in its call for the establishment of refuges like animal santuaries and marine parks where humans are barred or restricted. It suggested that the environment movement has tended to have a 'blame the other human' mentality and in the process could be accused of fear mongering. In fact the message around fear is having an impact on the community. The program pointed to recent British research on children's environmental awareness that shows half the 1,150 children surveyed, from 7 to 11 years, 'are anxious about the effects of global warming and often lose sleep over it' (Jones, 2007). Amongst the fears the children mention are 'poor health, the possible submergence of entire countries and the welfare of animals'.

How do children learn about the environmental crisis? From their parents, the school, the media, their friends? The report did not look to socialisation as such but stated that 1 in 7 children believe their parents are not doing enough to look after the enviroment. It also found that most of the children are aware of the benefits of recycling although 10 percent thought that recycling had something to do with riding bikes (!)

There is a serious lesson here - how to inform the community, especially young children, about environmental problems and the need to care for the planet without raising the spectra of fear?

Environmental educator David Sobel (1999) is concerned about this kind of pressure on children to understand the dynamics of the ecological crisis. He suggests that adults, and especially environmental education programs which focus on environmental abuse, may in fact work in reverse. Rather than raising awareness and concern about environmental issues, Sobel asserts that these programs may engender a subtle form of disassociation. Children may turn off, tune out, or cut themselves off because the problem is too difficult for them to handle or even to hear about. Sobel likens this tendency to switch off to the same kind of reaction or response mechanism acted out by children who have suffered various kinds of abuse.

His antidote? 'If we want children to flourish we need to give them time to connect with nature and love the Earth before we ask them to save it.'

I began this blog talking about the role of the spiritual in relation to identity and belonging. It looked to the process of relationship creation whether with the divine, the natural world or with others, then shifted to consider the role of mainline religions in promoting a sense of identity and belonging with the natural world as divine other. It discussed whether certain religions and certain elements of the environment movement have something in common - the escatological dimension, but outlined that the dire end of the world warnings give rise to fear and trauma in young children.

The lesson unfolds - to protect the earth there needs to be another way to act and react: rejoice and celebrate the planet's wondrous and interconnected ecosystems, love the earth, engage with the outdoors, cherish a sense of play and place, delight in birdsong, relish each day and feel the allure of the divine natural world - not only as other but also as self.

References
ABC News, 2007, Religious leaders urge Govt to act on climate change, PM, Oct 3, 2007, http://abc.net.au/news/audio/2007/10/03/2050357.htm
Erricker C and J Erricker, Eds, 2001, Contemporary Spiritualities: Social and Religious Contexts, London and New York: Continuum.
Jones A, 2007, 'Children losing sleep over global warming,' The Scotsman, Feb 27, 2007, http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=289422007

The Singing Tree

Sometimes the whole tree grove along the river is singing. Parrots, Lorikeets, Noisy Mynahs, Little Brown Birds, the trees are filled with movement and the sparkling sound of bird chatter. Shadows flit through the branches, darting from blossom to blossom, chirping, and all the while the trees seem to sway with a choir of bird song.

The spirit of this place is heightened by paying attention, engaging with all the senses, becoming attuned to the allure of sirens that draw you to them. Sound, touch, feel, taste, smell. Feeling heady amongst the honey aroma of the eucalypt grove, tasting the sweetness on the breeze. These experiences enrich the river connection and remind me of what is lost when people forget the need for these special and precious moments. Ecophilosopher David Abram (2001) (re)vitalizes the destiny role of the senses when he states: 'The fate of the earth depends on a return to our senses.'

Abram maintains that in this post-industrial era we have literally lost our senses, in particular, the direct sensory experience of the world around us. As the city loses its green shadey avenues and its heritage housing, as the birds and animals (except domestic ones) disappear from the tight urban swell, he fears we lose a part of who we are, part of our identity as both human and nature. Instead, he suggests we need to re-discover the world using 'our animal eyes' and 'animal ears' and re-invest the surroundings as sensate, feeling, animate. By engaging the senses and re-engaging with the sensory world, we rekindle the patterns and textures of our wildness, our evolutionary relationship with all sentient beings in the vibrant ecosystem. Abram puts it this way:

'The senses are what is most wild in us; capacities that we share, in some manner ... with most other entities in the living landscape, from earthworms to eagles. Flowers responding to sunlight, tree roots extending rootlets in search of water, even the movement of a simple bacterium in response to its fluid surroundings; here, too, are sensation and sensitivity, distant variants of our own sentience. Apart from breathing and eating, the senses are our most intimate link with the living land, the primary way the earth has of influencing our moods and guiding our actions.'

The earth influencing our moods and guiding our actions? As I have outlined previously in this blog, much research has been conducted on the role of green spaces, trees and gardens in enhancing human health, wellbeing and quality of life and the consequences of being removed from what Abram calls in his article 'The Ecology of Magic' (1995) those 'vital sources of nourishment' like the sight and sound of birds quivering on luscious honey flowers.

I wonder then if there is a loss of memory as if the so-called scientific modern rational mindscape has plastered over the cracks of an emergent sensual spirituality. Perhaps, and partly because of this, notions of the sacred are directed to the other worldly and gloss over the dynamism of the ecosystem as sacred process. The sense of the sacred and the full expression of the senses then become 'out of this world' rather than embedded within it. This use of the notion of other worldlyness also heightens the dualism between sacred/profane, transcendent/immanent, supernatural/natural (Piette, 1993 in Hervieu-Leger, 2000:46). Within the realm of the sensual, an emotionally-laden and experiential spirituality awakens through the process of connecting with the sacred - the river, the birds, the trees, the ecology in an embodied and feeling (eco)self.

Reconnecting with body memory, with the crazy sensualness of life, touches a multitude of experiential receptors. A sensual spirituality is enflamed and disperses like seeds on the wind into an ecospiritual sensual richness of symbolic and embodied meaning creation.

References
Abram D, 1995, 'The Ecology of Magic,' in T Roszak, ME Gomes and AD Kanner, Eds., Ecopsychology. Restoring the Earth. Healing the Mind, San Francisco, Sierra Club.
Hervieu-Leger D, 1993, Religion as a Chain of Memory, Trans S. Lee, Cambridge, Polity Press.
Piette A, 1993, Les Religions Seculaires, Paris, PUF, Coll. Que sais-je?

Heat

One in ten (!) of the world's large rivers runs dry every year before it reaches the sea, the magnificent Murray is one such river. The danger to rivers globally was raised this week as part of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) report: Global Environment Outlook: Environment for Development.

At the very time when the planetary crisis was announced by UNEP following a study from 1400 scientists across the globle, the courts in London were debating the validity of showing Al Gore's An Inconvenient truth to school students without an accompanying critique of Gore's conclusions. This court ruling and the scientific evidence seem poles apart.

The UNEP report made a startling statement: 'The future of humanity has been put at risk by a failure to address environmental problems including climate change, species extinction and a growing human population.'

The thought of the extent of ecological damage and the human cause of this life-threatening problem should be so shocking as to galvanise urgent action but UNEP says that governments worldwide have their collective heads in the sand. And in Australia as well.

The earth is overused and undervalued. The UNEP report found that human consumption and its accompanying ecological footprint is signficantly outstripping the earth's resources to match the demand. Biodiversity was next on UNEP's list of great concerns with 30% of amphibians, 23% of mammals and 12% of birds in danger of extinction.

There is not much more to say. It is a frightening picture.