Surrender

My youngest sister is mad-keen  on opp. shopping. She loves nothing more than rooting around in the back of charity or second hand shops for pre-loved bargains. Call,it recycling, scrounging, scavenging, whatever, it has purpose in raising money fro the poor, and breathing life into discarded items that would normally go into landfill.

So yesterday wasn't surprised to discover a brand new set of DVD 's, that she'd bought for me for the princely sum of $2. Six discs about the history of America's National Parks. I excitedly tore off the plastic and began watching, immediately stunned by the magnificent virgin ecosystems. I loosely followed the narration, a history of views about finding stuff in nature, God, truth, beauty, solitude, and so on.

No  surprise that 140 years ago, there were intelligent people, with a great insight into nature, and man's small part in it, that foresaw a need to preserve Yosemite and other ecosystems. However, as sure as eggs, even those on the inside of the movement saw profit to be made from people wanting to witness majestic beauty. Invariably they set up accommodation and guiding services and probably did well out of it all. It seems to  be the human condition to look for a way to profit from any situation. Unlike the Aborigines of Australia, who lived in harmony with the land (rovers and seas), for over forty thousand years. Whiteman has caused major damage to all ecosystems across this vast nation in a little over two hundred years.

Anyway, back to 1880's in Yosemite: and although there were many standout men involved, one stood out above all  others. It's reported that this fellow, whose name escapes me, wandered about in nature like no others before him (except First Nations People the world over). Our man expressed a need to "understand" various natural elements: at a waterfall he would walk in behind the curtain, or out on the rockface in order to feel what the water experienced, he climbed giant sequoia trees during storms to experience what the tree experienced, he wandered the wilderness, alone, for days on end soaking up the experience. His ethos was one of SURRENDERING TO NATURE.

My lightbulb starts flashing and I'm thinking about sailing. How last January I floated, engineless on the calm waters off Port Stephens, in total for a mere 12  hours. At first this felt terrible, I wanted to move, to do stuff. But I couldn't. I was forced to concede, to surrender to a lack of wind and an adverse tidal flow. Eventually I succumbed, I made coffee, I read, I lounged about, I glanced onto the water ... then something marvellous began to unfold.  I began to really see things; flotsam drifted by and I  wondered from what tree on what part of the waterway those leaves had fallen, I saw jellyfish pulsating about on the shade of the boat. I began to think on a broader scale, what lay deeper? I asked the sea. Birds arching overhead, towering cliff-faces by the entrance, ancient volcanic peaks, eroding according to rock formation and the effects of wind,rain, sun and waves. The  more I saw, the more I realised what a privilege I was being offered. All for the price of a week's accommodation on cruise ship I could float, at snail's pace among cetaceans, sea birds, sea life and the beauty of the sky and seas themselves, in ever-changing light, colour, mood. Only by surrendering to nature was this made known to me. Had that stinking hulk of metal below been working, had the wind sustained through morning, or tide Benn in our favour,  I may have never been surrendered myself and would have missed one of the most glorious lessons in my life.

What also fell away during that time, drifting off the heads was fear I had imported onto Bohemian:  those rusty skin fittings would let go, of horrendous weather, the rig would fall over, that "something would go wrong". A ball of global  fear weighing me down had lifted. I realised that there no use being afraid of fate except trim the sails and steer the boat. How liberating this notion of surrendering to nature. The requirements are few, working legs, a canoe or small sailboat to propel you into nature.