The end of the world

The subject of the end of the world, is a hard subject to get away from. There are many real events happening (globally) which cause substantial damage. Then there are the ongoing commentaries about how the world is going to end - imagined by the traditional schedule of ominous signs which precludes the end must be nigh.

When I took my blog break recently, I was also able to pay attention to what was happening around me (everything) and saw the world as something new. It's about an ongoing symphony of survival which disaster plays a part, but is not the final encore. While my garden had dried up from the extreme heat recently, and I saw some of the small trees we planted die - strangely, the cicadas were having an absolute ball in the heat.

New life was indeed emerging from the ground (cicada nymphs live in the ground and up to seven years later, emerge to complete their final moult) the life just wasn't emerging from all the places I had touched with my own hand.

I've been fortunate enough to live through a natural disaster (2011 Queensland floods - two, if you count Cyclone Tracy in 1974 as a baby) and I would have to say the "majority" of us do survive. We just don't always have the same world afterwards. We do see the "end" of many things in that regard, but are we also paying attention to what is beginning anew?

It has done me some personal good to have "disaster" touch my reality. There were things which really needed to end, so I could put my energy into areas of new growth. Our entire household has benefited from this brush with reality. It's a real knife's edge - you live or you die. It slices right down the middle, so there can be no ambiguity with "almost" the end or "almost" the beginning.

Yet so much of my reality lived before then, was fear of the beginning or the end.

The rain has recently set in again. There are predictions some areas could see rainfall totals, similar to that of the 2011 Queensland floods. We have a Severe Storm Warning for our area. As much as news like this, sets my hackles on edge, it also does me good to know that every day is a day I share with the symphony of survival. I shouldn't have to run away from it, dig in and build a fortress. There is nothing I could build that a natural disaster couldn't remove in a mere day anyway.

I've had minor stress about some areas around the house we haven't fortified yet, but only just recently, I was admiring our handiwork on the retaining wall out the back. So many millions of years went into each rock we laid by hand. Each rock has a story of their own to tell. The reason we came to lay them in the first place, was because of a natural disaster which hit our area. The rocks and our story, are intertwined now.

There are many reasons behind our actions on this property. Mainly because a system suddenly changed (our own systems, or nature's) but generally they are intertwined - like the beginning and the end. Perhaps that is our mortal destiny, to live or to die, along with everything else: so we may derive a purpose of being "beyond" that?

I can therefore find no joy in acknowledging the end of the world, for the sake of the end alone. An ominous sign is just something we noticed - it pays no heed to what we weren't paying attention to at the same time.

The more I work with our property, the more I come to realise there can be no "one" system to cater to all. We cannot have everything our way, it's about developing a relationship of compromise with everything else living around us. Some years we celebrate things working to our expectations, other years we accept the challenges presented, far exceeded our capabilities.

What matters, is that we don't waste time supposing the "end game" with all it's intricate details of destruction. We can easily get caught in details of ominous signs. The work by our hands though, that is what really makes us feel connected and engaged.

I choose to enjoy what work I have available today, even when that work involves a bit of failure or fear. It's not always about what we hope for, but also accepting what comes along. That is life happening as it must, and it's not always easy to embrace. But it is what it is.

I had hoped to post some new pictures of the retaining wall out back, but it seems the "weather" has conspired against me.  It hasn't of course, I'm just required to sit back and wait for another opportunity to take photos. The real business of life is falling in the form of rain today, and that's important too.

It's early in the morning, and I can hear the birds chirping outside. They are a welcome sound to a brand new day. Happy Australia Day, to my fellow patriots.