2017-02-23
Renee Pettitt-Schipp
The aggression and violence that has been displayed in the last few months by our State Government toward our environment and peaceful protesters has left many people reeling. That violence has been expressed both in physical acts, such as excessive force, trampling and/or charging seated men and women with police horses, intimidation, such as officers closely filming protesters faces, as well as in the carnage of animals who were unable to flee the scenes of swift and ruthless destruction.
Like many, I have found it hard not to despair as I look back over my suburb and try to take in the wide stretch of sand baking in the sun. This blank space is the same place where in winter, native wisteria weaved purple through spikes of grasstrees, where I caught my breath as prickly moses spread its sea of yellow pompoms beneath Carnabys calling high in trees. But I look and I take it in and I stay with it, this is not a time to turn away.
Kahlil Gibran says that when we hold our grief and sorrow, it carves out a vessel in us to contain our joy. This sits true for me, and though there are times when I simply have to walk away, it does not feel like masochism the times I choose to stay and can only watch the bulldozers rolling in. Bearing witness is an important act that helps us to be clear, that informs us on a deep level as to what is happening in, and to, our world. Paying attention keeps us vital and informed, even when that knowledge is hard to hold.
I could not go down to the wetland today, I felt too raw, like a slow unravelling was taking place. Instead I went to South Beach where the water was clear, small waves curling around bodies of fish, a bare-skinned baby holding seaweed, laughing at its soft texture in her hand.
When I see the connection between families down at the beach, when I witness acts of love by women and men at the construction site, not just for the bushland, but for each other, I know I can hold my hope. Joanna Macy tells us hope can be something we choose, something we do, not something we necessarily 'have, and those of us who are parents must feel the imperative of making sure we find a way back there.
I heard on the radio recently a writer saying that the future is not something to be feared, but something to be written. At the Beeliar wetlands, we are writing the future with our bodies, a future in which we do not accept 'progress at any cost, a future in which we choose to remain co-authors, because we know a richer story than one that would disconnect us from a world that is 'us, a story about a world held in love.
Header photo: Police and protesters at the Beeliar Wetlands. Renee Pettitt-Schipp
Text photo: Native wisteria weaving through a grasstree. Renee Pettitt-Schipp