While tending to my plants in the backyard last Saturday morning, after a long time and as a rare opportunity when you are forever lost in the corporate jungle chasing your own tail, I could not stop noticing the little trees finally starting to sprout out little flowers in their even now dry, bare bone branches. And when a tree survived a ground digging that uprooted it to a new location, and clearly showed how life can find its way even in the most adversial condition. It was mother earth, nourishing her off-springs, no questions asked, no asking for corporate like bonuses and adulations, just down with her duty of nurture, and continuation of life on the planet. You feel that affinity to little spice plant that started to grow, or the lemon tree that now is full of yellow lemons that you never imagined could grow that fast. Your feet are literally planted, to the Ground, to earth, to soil and grass, the connection you would not have living in your comfy chair or sofa, or a concrete jungle. Surely the ‘rain bomb’ of past few weeks that soaked Sydney and much of the Australian Eastern coast has helped nature bloom in full force, along with easing of cold as we head to Spring. Today’s full blown Sunny day was such a beautiful break, a gasp everyone is relishing with a grin and joy.
This closeness you feel with your little non human plant ‘children’, that will one day grow up and become your silent companions, your shade to harsh Australian sun, or provide spice to your tastes, might be fleeting, but real. That is when it hit me, the realization of how the indigenous people would have felt with their land, the water sources, the trees they planted and started to grow, the flowers they sowed seeds on start to blossom, the water sources they revered as God. They look after nature, nature looks after them. I can’t imagine what they might have gone through when it was brutally taken away from them, the violence, the indignity they were subjected to must have been hellishly shocking. True the new comers did bring new know hows and built a prospering nation out of bushland, but it would be a monumental mistake to discard all that indigenius knowledge and the culture that sustains it as ‘mumbo jumbo’. Because I have a feeling we humans are moving further and further away from the reality of nature and living more in our own heads inspite of all the technological progress. Our senses of care for others diminishing, our tolerance virtually non existent, we are turning into demanding, entitled spoilts and mini gremlins of our own kind, a new human species evolving perhaps, might be taking us close to our collective peril.
I was in the Museum of Sydney with family and going through the time travel when Australia used to be a playground and an ecosystem maintained by humans and nature together. I would recommend anyone interested in seeing how the Aussie aboriginies formed that link with nature, a visit to that great masteripiece of a museum, an inspiration and an homage to the first people of this vast country. It woke me up from the digital slumber and jombie drift, brought back the consciousness that is true to nature and human, on a Sunday afternoon.
To value that knowledge, that human way of connecting to nature, what indigenous people had and preserved for thousands of years before they were dragged through hell, would be one thing we can do to ensure our future in this universe when the world finally comes back to basics – only nature and us, due to our own foolishness, I leave the imaginations of how it might happen, to you.
Ravi Tandukar 