Spirituality Guide

Whatever the origin, it seems in recent times there are more and more people starting to look at 2012 as some kind of special date. If the message of The Secret is true, it is quite possible we are all going to make it a special date, simply by focusing on it so much.

Some people are looking around the world and seeing the end of the world, not because of conditions matching prophecy of their personal beliefs, but because it seems so many facets of our world are riding the knife edge of disaster.

We have too many people. We have known this for some time but nobody (except the Chinese and the Swiss) is doing anything about it. We have almost seven billion people, breathing, eating, shitting and altering our environment, day by day.

We have a culture that allows 5% - 10% of the population to consume 85% of the resources, and worse, to consume them on a throwaway basis.

We have almost all our industries using and dumping poisons back, almost pure, into the environment where we have to grow our food. Our governments are putting other poisons in the water, purportedly to stop our teeth rotting (a vital concern obviously) and to overcome the fact that our fresh water is becoming toxic to us.

We run an economic system that allows people who produce nothing to drive up the prices of our goods and services to make themselves rich while those at either end of the chain remain constantly broke. We have allowed corporations and banks to determine the conditions in which they will operate, and naively expect them to do things that are good for us all, instead of just good for them.

And we have governments made up of people who will do anything, literally, to get into power – it’s like hiring pedophiles to mind our children. The one group of people who should never be given power are those who so desperately desire it.

So perhaps those who are looking to 2012 are simply seeing that soon, any one of these factors will pass a tipping point, a place where the system can no longer tolerate the condition and it breaks.

I wrote this some time ago but I think it applies now…

The smoke-smell was quite strong that day, inhaled deep into breast
The sun was high, the wind was mild, coming from the west.
Crackles came as fire bit in, the next ridge burning bright
It seared the slope across the gulch, all since morning light

Red tongue of flame had reached this side, of gully-bottom’s creek
We’d stop it here or run like hell, as safety we would seek
Heat haze above and viscous smoke, made it hard to see
Wet sacking, shovel, pack on back, fire heroes we would be

It started in the neighbour state, we tried to raise alarm
But National Park authorities, couldn’t see the harm
From 50 hectares at that time, its’ size so quickly grew
It crossed the border 5 miles wide; we’d need a bigger crew

Land round Bendoc’s high and steep, more vertical than flat
Our huge and heavy dozers, couldn’t cope with that
The call went out, resources flowed, firefighters came apace
We set up two more base camps, we really needed space

There’s choppers four, six fixed wings too, nine dozers had come in
When trying to pass the jobs around, we all raised quite a din
And now we stood, the thinnest line, a frail and human wall
We’d stem the tide and save our towns, just fire could make us fall

We knew that when the flames did leap, across the tiny stream
They’d race upslope, our flesh to burn, our tears to turn to steam
We had no choice of where we stood, conflagration chose
Smoked tears we wept, coughing loud, and dribbled from the nose

When first we met our fiery foe, the tiny little burn
Had grown in size a thousand times, and then began to turn
Out of place and miles away, we’d had to rush right in
No choice of where to fight the beast, we took it on the chin

For days we sweat against the roar, the showers of sparks so bright
It stayed so dark from smoke and ash, we knew not day or night
When flame rose high and threatened all, there was no time for fear
Just wet that sack and swing it round, Death is truly near

The flames went by, we ran for life, and got back to the front
Old George was just magnificent; his team now took the brunt
And slowly as reports came in, we saw the tide had turned
We started getting rest breaks then, but not what we had earned

For two long weeks the fire had raged, had torn our lives apart
But folks were safe, though we were spent, from that we all took heart
A mighty celebration raged, pissed workers all around
Then hungover and bleary-eyed, we made our way to town.

Standing in front of a fire place on a cold night is a comfort – we watch the flames leap and cavort, we hold out hands to get warm and we relish the time spent with loved ones in such a room.

A cold burn set by humans to clear the undergrowth can be scary – watching the flames track you as you move along the line, using wet hessian or pigs (water tanks of several hundred gallons) on the back of a Land Cruiser to control the spread of the flames brings realisation of how easily it could get out of hand.

Being closer than miles to a raging inferno of a bushfire is an experience out of this world. Fires such as those which have devastated Victoria are living monsters, demons of heat, noise and awesomeness that can leave the strongest quaking in fear.

The fires rage so hot they suck air in across the front, creating a gale that threatens to suck you into the flames.

The air rises fast as it is heated and feeds the flames. The roar of the fire is deafening, so loud you can feel it in your bones. The doof-doof of the suburban youth has nothing on this. Standing right behind a 747 jet engine might come close.

The heated air reaches for the tree tops, exploding leaves into flames, tearing them from their branches and speeding them across the untouched bush ahead of the fire front.

The heat radiating from the front makes you wonder why you ever thought heat was a good thing. You can almost feel your face peeling off as the blast hits you.

What most people don’t get is that, when you get close to the fire, it is hard to think, let alone reason out what to do. That’s why they only allow trained personnel on the fire line

Most people have by now heard of the fires in Victoria, Australia. The blazes swept across bush and town, moving at incredible speed and burning hot enough to melt metal on the cars it consumed. The body count is nearly two hundred and there are still large areas the searchers have yet to enter, raising the possibility of even higher numbers of dead.

The fires raged through bush left almost untouched by fuel reduction burns – Green pressure of the past fifteen years led to most of the cold burns of the off season being dropped from the schedules of the departments responsible for crown lands, national and state forests.

Yet on Monday, while people were still being consumed by flame, these Greens hit the papers with accusations of the Government being responsible by failing to address Anthropogenic Global warming issues radically enough.

One has to wonder about the callousness of such people who would dive so soon into the blame game. One also wonders how many of those responsible for stopping the fuel reduction burns went to the fire lines to try to help deal with the ravening monster they created. Have any of those with the loudest voices even set foot in the bush they claimed they were trying to save from man’s depredations?

How dare such people start casting blame while the heroes of the CFA (Country Fire Authority) and other organisations, alongside volunteers risking everything to save others, were walking towards conflagration that would have most people screaming in terror?

This is the bad side of disaster – those who choose a political life see an opportunity to rush in and make headlines, forgetting all about the tragedy unfolding around them as they make political points.

In our world it seems everything is becoming more and more geared towards safety. The government passes laws almost daily to curtail injury, to allow them to fine people who might put themselves in harm’s way.

Our children are coddled and swathed in safe environments to prevent anything bad happening to them, yet somehow previous generations were not only able to struggle through such horrendous risks, they seem to have thrived on them.

Some of the sickliest people I have met have come from a coddled environment where they were prevented from having exposure to the world outside. Recent research suggests such exposure is needed to kickstart the immune system. It’s the same principle under which we vaccinate – exposure to a small risk will stimulate the protectiveness that will fend off the potentially fatal version.

When disaster comes, when massive trauma arrives unheralded as nature smacks down the impertinent humans, those who cope best are those who’ve learned early that the world can be a harsh place. Those who’ve never experienced hardship are often the ones most in need of help as they wilt under pressure when they find there is no real haven from disaster.

But sometimes, just sometimes, the least likely people will shine under adversity, while the ones we expect to cope, show they don’t have the grit to function.

Have you been through trauma on a scale that affects entire communities? Have you watched the people around you when all the normal coping mechanisms fail and they stand exposed to the raw power of the world around them?

I want to interrupt the normal flow of posts about the spiritual world. I want to talk about tragedy, drama, disaster because I think sometimes, the only way to see the real people out there, is when events so large they push aside the normal day-to-day masks we wear, that the deep down person hiding inside is visible

It is in times of major events when we see the unexpected, when heroic behaviour arises and when humans can be at their worst or their best. It is hard to face catastrophe, extremely difficult to behave well in the face of overwhelming events, yet over and again we see apparently normal people not only do it, but do it so well they can only be called Hero.

Living in the world around us it is easy to get into the viewpoint that people are pretty much fucked. They cheat, lie, steal, indulge in casual violence for the pettiest of reasons… the list seems endless. It can be a source of depression, a cause for apathy as we look around and see a world where the least common denominator seems to be controlling the state of play of our society.

Yet on occasions of terror, of trauma so massive it is hard to imagine much less face, we often find the apparent scum of our society are those who rise to magnificence.

Recent events here in Australia have once more brought out the best in people. The Aussies have come out to support and cherish those who have suffered hardship and loss when the bushfires showed us Nature’s February Fury as they destroyed lives and towns.

A comment on a blog about Americans remembering brought this back to me; I thought it might help them to know that others around the world remember too, that the night (for Aussies) was one of disbelief and horror as the story unfolded. Whatever came after, that night stands in memory. - Seeker

I came home from the city, on a clear and cool Spring night
after a hard night’s drinking, I was seeking peace and quiet
I settled in with coffee cup, remote to TV link
Flicking through the programs, looking, cop show for me, I think

As I watched it pulled me in, to following the plot
Then ads cut in, annoyance rose, it happens such a lot
Pick up remote, a channel change, and there upon the screen
It’s obviously a movie, but not one that I’ve seen

Cityscape, sky-scraping towers, one of them on fire
A long way up, fifty floors, or maybe even higher
Disaster flick it was, I thought, or aliens invade
I wondered why in TV guide, no mention of it made

Then the local news presenter, female, blonde and cute
Appeared onscreen all serious, in tailored female suit
I didn’t hear her newsbreak flash, still a bit bemused
The movie ran behind her still, it left me quite confused

I finally listened to her words, and understanding came
It was happening in real life; we’d never be the same
I felt cold, all thought shut down, with growing horror now
The Trade Centre was burning, no-one knew just how

Smoke was pouring from the wall, through jagged gaping hole
I hadn’t felt such awesome fear, since time of Grassy Knoll
The world was changing, that I knew, was it World War 3?
Who would attack America, the land of Brave and Free?

Addicted to the footage, I couldn’t move at all
I daren’t miss a moment’s film, I didn’t think to call
I sat and heard presenters guess, they seemed less sure than I
With Towers in the background, they weren’t watching sky

With disbelieving eyes I saw, a plane came from out wide
It didn’t try to miss the tower, just smashed into the side
Time stood still, my mind did spin, replay or real life?
But two sites now belched smoke to sky, the US was in strife!

With goosebumps all across my skin, my mind was out of whack
Then Sandra Sully came back on, disaster at her back
Someone on scene had finally caught, the image I had seen
Their speculations focussed in, attack this must have been

I waited for the white contrails, arc’d through an azure sky
To show the escalating war, the how if not the why
The night remains a crystal blur, of muddy, vivid scenes
And frantic conversations, facts and might-have-beens

The towers fell, one by one, with awesome dusty roar
I knew the folk were dying there, in numbers by the score
With tears in eyes, numb disbelief, the news got even worse
There’s smoke above the White House, just starting to disperse

I felt the aching pain of allies, watching from the side
A great and mighty nation, brought down in its pride
No-one knew just where to strike, they simply knew they must
They pondered through scenarios, whom the States could trust

I listened as they heard the news, the Pentagon was hit
As more came in I had the thought, the Yanks are in deep shit
The urge came strong, it built up quick, it rampaged through my head
The CIA should find them all! Find them, kill them Dead!

When news came in a plane was down, they didn’t quite know why
With clairvoyant awareness, I saw folks prepared to die
They must have feared, but still they tried, just what they had to do
I thought in awe of courage raw, of heroes through and through

There are few times in one man’s life, before it’s really gone
He clearly sees the future change, as it’s going on
JFK, man on the Moon, in memory reside
But 911 showed terrorism, it’s time to stem the tide