Seasons - of life, of body, of soul, of spirit.

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How important are the Seasons and how important it is to be aware of them.  

Within our spiritual walk, we greet the seasons.  However, for those of us living in the Southern Hemisphere, it can be very difficult to draw every bit of spiritual juice from a season when its heritage is located firmly and historically in the Northern Hemisphere.  In fact, some of my favourite feasts could benefit from a rethinking in a southern or country specific context.

As well as the spiritual calendar, we have the dominant calendar.  This can be regarded as scientific or as a legacy of a dominant European empire.  

Then, as many of us know, but not all of us realise there are the indigenous, place specific seasons.  

The picture above relates to The Gooniyandi Seasons Calendar.  Please follow the link to find out more.

It should be emphasised that this calendar relates to a specific place or country.  This cannot be applied in every part of Australia - or even every part of tropical Australia.  I think those of us who are gardeners, particularly those who garden for food, realise that even suburb to suburb a few kilometres apart in a city can have different micro-climates.  When frost ceases, when winds come, when vegetables mature. 

As we draw close to the awareness and practicum of the seasons, we are enabled and encouraged to draw closer to our Creator, the Designer of our world.  We can partner with this aspect of Creation to our own benefit.  Let us learn from our Creator, from the original inhabitants, let us listen to the experience of the old hands. 

As much of the world evidences changes in established climate patterns, we still need to learn from the past as new avenues of learning come upon us.  Isn't that like our spiritual journey? We learn, we change, we learn again. Through this we expand our knowledge of ourselves and others.  We learn more of the Creator we worship and the personality who designed all this with us - and other species - in mind.  We experience the seasons of our lives.

Fasts and Feasts: sustainability and a Lenten lifestyle

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Picture from here

On 22 February 2012 -   the season of Lent leading up to Good Friday and Easter will begin with Ash Wednesday.  In the Western Christian tradition, fast days are Ash Wednesday and all Fridays.  Some add Wednesdays as an option.  Ash Wednesday and Fridays, are also abstinence days when there is abstinence from meat.  On these days Christians have fish and vegetarian dishes.

I am posting as a reminder that, in the season when Christian seafood eating is dominant, we might consider seafood sustainability and the health and welfare of oceans, rivers and watercourses from which seafood comes.  Not only can we consider these matters during the Lenten season.  We should be seeking to embed such ideas in our lifestyles as permanent patterns.  For more on this, please go to my food blog, Oz Tucker.

Naked Vegetarians and a Garden : God's original plan

 

Picture from Restoring Eden

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Anti-Poverty Week: fight poverty for a week, a month or a lifetime

I originally did the post here below a week ago. To-day is The International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. To mark the occasion and to participate in the event organised by Bloggers Unite, I am putting this post to the top of the blog as well as posting pictures at the top of the blog and the side bar. Please read and act.

It looks to me like Anti-Poverty Week is a moveable feast this year (well, famine - depending on success). Check out here and here and here.  However, just to make the point that it's what you do not when you do it that counts, there are some events you can get to:

Anti-Poverty Sunday at

Melbourne Mar Thoma Church

Sunday October 11 at 3pm

featuring:

Bronwyn Darlington, Founder of Rise Up

who will speak about

working in the clothing industry

to assist people living in poverty.

and

singer/muso Joel Meadows of the Steinbecks.

Click to enlarge

Yhen on October 27 at 6.30pm
you can get in your kayak
and row over to the
Melbourne Rowing Club
Boathouse Street
Melbourne
for The Great Debate

Tickets are limited
so please pre-book your seats
by calling Lara on 9417
7985 or email appeal@smhow.org.au

Click to enlarge

and you can do this:

Make your $2 work for a better world – find out more and take the pledge!

On October 17 (the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty),

take the $2 A Day Pledge for two weeks,

choose Fairtrade and help make poverty history!

What you can do in Anti-Poverty Week 2009

We can make a start by being a part of Anti-Poverty Week 2009. Last year in Anti-Poverty Week an escape artist stripped down to his undies to fight poverty at Flinders St Station in the center of Melbourne. Rather than get arrested, he became the focus of media attention for promoting  No Sweat Shop label and Fairtrade garments (he was wearing Rise Up undies made out of Fairtrade cotton). Such clothes enables  young kids in developing countries to leave the cotton picking industry and return to school (and the model’s ‘attire’ was manufactured in Australia under guaranteed legal minimum wage and conditions). This year there is no need to strip down to your undies like our escape artist, but you can run a barbecue, invite a speaker, hold a forum or play a stunt in aid of strengthening public understanding of the causes and consequences of poverty and hardship around the world and in Australia.

All you need to do is 

go to the 

Anti-Poverty Week website 

and register your event!

You can also attend an event

 in your local community.

Multifaith Week 2009 in Melbourne

Last week was Multifaith Week in Melbourne.

On Sunday morning, I attended the Sikh Gurdwara at Blackburn

as a guest of my friend Jessiee Kaur Singh.

To find out more about Sikhism go here.

It was a beautiful experience.

The shrine pictured above contains the holy scripture entitled the Gurū Granth Sāhib

People come in (queues are separate for men and women and they sit separately),

place coins in a large receptacle, bow/kneel and go to their place of prayer.

Large screens are either side of the shrine with excerpts of the scripture

which are chanted.

The scriptures are displayed in the language of the Sikhs,

then in English, and then phonetically.

It was easy to chant along with the rest of the congregation.

Providing music and leading the chanting

are the three men pictured below.

The man behind the holy scripture read from the scripture.

There were announcements - but not in English, sadly.

And then little girls came around with boxes of tissue.

We took one and then a man came around with dollops of

sweet mixture from a bowl.  "Healing" whispered Jessiee.

A different take on Communion, thought I, since the Sacrament can

also be taken as Healing. 

Before the service I had seen people "laying the table" in a manner of speaking for lunch.

Each place was laid with a metal compartmentalised tray, a metal cup, and a spoon.

I counted sixteen places across eighteen rows.

But when I came from the service I found that there were a couple more rows.

Then where we ate was at tables.

It looks like the place settings go on forever.

I estimated that there were about 400 to 500 people fed at this sitting.

Apparently, about 5000 meals are served a week on

Wednesdays and Sundays.

Although, if people come to the Gurdwara and need

food on other days, they will be provided for.

Needless to say, with such crowds hand-washing

is important and extensive hand-washing facilities are provided.

All this happens by donation and helpers are on a rotation roster.

I spoke to a group of women relaxing after their morning roster.

They do the last Sunday of the month.

As you can see from the list of needs above, all this is donated.

~~~~

After our meal, we went across to the Darebin Parklands

for an Aboriginal tree-planting ceremony.

Pictured above are Jessie Kaur Singh of

GreenFaith Australia, COMMON, and the Global Dialogue Foundatio;

Reg Blow of the Maya Healing Centre; and John Bellavance of

Voices for Peace.

The Mayor of Darebin, Councillor Diana Asmar,

was a beautiful and impressive woman

as she commemorated and committed the

Peace Tree to the earth.

Uncle Reg prays for the tree with the didj.

A Journey to Silver Wattle: reflection and nourishment among Friends

As Lewis Carroll had the King say to the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland -
Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop.

To-day is a new beginning.
Quakers in Australia have long held a dream -
a dream for a study centre.
To-day the dream comes to fruition as
Quakers move into Silver Wattle
beside Lake George in New South Wales.

In the next few hours,
I will be leaving my home in Melbourne
to drive to Silver Wattle
where I will serve as chief cook and bottle washer
for the interesting collection of people
who staff and organise the Centre
and who will come to the Centre
for courses and retreat.

My trusty eleven year old station wagon
is packed to the gunwhales.
I really don't know how to travel light.
But food is a serious and creative busines
and I want to be sure there are certain things in place.

In the wagon are

• boxes of herbs to begin a kitchen garden
• boxes of preserves - jams, marmalades, syrups, chutneys, pickles, sauces - with thanks to Pat, Tessa, and Belinda.
• there is a large plastic container full of recipe books.  I am sure there will be people at Silver Wattle who are passionate about food.  They might like to leaf through the recipe books and chose some favourites. Communal menu preparation, perhaps?
• There is a shopping trolley full of books for study and for reading: a variety which includes Eric Rolls and Teilhard de Chardin and books about the Tao.  Also in there is Advices and Queries and the Rule of St Benedict, that classic of Christian communal life.
• Then there are various kitchen appliances like my Kenwood Mixer, the Furi knives, the cafe griller, the blender.

So the journey begins.
A new project at Silver Wattle.
My journey from Melbourne to Lake George.
A new chapter in my spiritual life.
New friendships to make.
A beginning to be held in The Light.

Click on the Silver Wattle picture 

on the sidebar to go to my Journal

Coal for breakfast?

There is a saying about us here in Australia:

If it moves shoot it.

If it stands still, mine it.

That saying probably came from our own droll sense of humour. This next one came from a marketing company:

Queensland. Beautiful one day. Perfect the next.

I've come up with another which expresses both sayings in one:

Queensland.

Beautiful one day.

Mined the next.

I am an expatriate Queenslander exiled and living in Melbourne. Many moons ago, I lived in Toowoomba on the Darling Downs. The Darling Downs and the neighbouring South Burnett region were ancestral homelands for one branch of the family tree: places like Pinelands, near Crows Nest; Bunya Mountains; Neumga near Nanango; Maidenwell; Cooyar (where my grandparents were the first to be married inthe Catholic Church there); MacLagan; Kingaroy. As you can no doubt guess, I came from farming stock at a time when most Australians living in urban areas had relatives back on the farm to whom they would go to for holidays.

The Darling Downs is a beautiful part of the world: a major granary and a major wool producer. Rich soils under cloudless blue skies for miles on end. The sort of place in which you wouldn't travel without picnic basket and thermos at the ready.

On my recent visit from Brisbane to Toowoomba, I didn't get out on to the Downs proper but the urban blight contaminating the landscape up through the Lockyer Valley to the Toowoomba Range made me wish I hadn't made the journey. When I left the Downs just over 30 years ago, the blight had started but it was minimal. Now it has sped up along Warrego Highway and the memories of rolling green paddocks made me want to weep.

Just as I want to weep when I see the video at the top of this blog. If we let this go irreparably to coal, what does this say about Australian society, Australian governments, Australian corporations. It says that we are after the quick buck taken from leasehold land, mining leases.

True, much of our pastoral and agricultural land was once taken the same way and those interests were not unlike miners insofar as they picked the most suitable country from which to "mine" its contribution to agricultural production. That sort of tenure has long since gone and there has been too much hard labour and sacrifice by men, women and children poured into winning a livelihood from the land to think to hard on the actual investment made.

We now live in a land of competing resources: mining -v- agriculture and both compete with urbanised communities for dwindling clean water resources. We are playing one resource off against another as if we can afford to play this game as long as all the balls stay up in the air.

Of course, the balls won't stay in the air. Governments will see to it that agricultural land is swallowed up to miners or land developers. As the video points out, we can't eat coal for breakfast. We can't drink clean water when it is no more because of our own carelessness and bad management. What a bequest to future generations.

Our friendly Network, Denis from The Nature of Robertson, has sent the following Statement from the Anglican, Catholic and Uniting Churches on the Darling Downs. Clearly, the churches are standing right where they should be: beside their people. Listen. Because, it is not only here that the battle is being fought. It is also being fought in the equally rich Liverpool Plains of NSW - and I am sure, dear Networkers, you will write and tell me of others facing similar impending catastrophes.

~~~~~~~~

A Statement of Concern Regarding Mining and Agriculture on the Darling Downs

The local leadership of the Anglican, Catholic and Uniting Churches on the Darling Downs have great concerns about the impact of some proposed mining activity on prime agricultural land. They support calls for a regional plan that would identify areas which could be mined and others which should be kept for sustainable agriculture and food production. Two areas in the region currently under consideration for coal mining are Felton and Haystack Plain.

Caring for creation is a strong part of the three Christian traditions. We believe that we are called to be wise stewards of the earth. In terms of our fragile planet we are facing an ecological crisis. Respect for nature and ecological responsibility are key parts of our faith.

Transformation to wise and sustainable use of the environment is at heart a spiritual matter. Environmental concern is a legitimate and necessary part of a Christian's response to God's loving provision for us. (Green by Grace A Report prepared for the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Australia 2004)

Experience shows that disregard for the environment always harms human coexistence, and vice versa. It becomes more and more evident that there is an inseparable link between peace with creation and peace. (Message of his HolinessPope Benedict XVI for the celebration of the World Day of Peace 1 January 2007)

We are concerned with the basic human rights of future generations and will urge the wise use of energy, the protection of the environment and the replenishment of the earth’s resources for their use and enjoyment. (Uniting Church, Statement to the Nation, 1977)

As communities of faith we stand in solidarity with those farmers who fear for their security and future way of life at this time. We also understand the contribution of mining and the generation of electricity in our region. We have a particular perspective on development which centres on the human person, the family and the community. When we consider future planning or development our primary question would be, “What is happening to the people?” rather than “What is happening to the economy?”

With the current world food shortage we believe it is important to protect land that has a history of sustainable food production. With a growing understanding about the impact of climate change we would also urge the Queensland State government to consider alternatives to coal mining in the Felton and Haystack Plain districts. These alternatives should be more sustainable and contribute more to the local community and economy.

We have concerns that the proposed coal mines will have an irreversible damaging impact on the soil and people of Haystack Plains and Felton. We would urge respectful and genuine dialogue between the resources and agricultural sector. For generations farmers in the Felton and Haystack Plains district have produced food for the wider Australian and international community. They have adapted their practises to ensure that future families can also live from and with the land. Our hope is that decisions made on the future use of these areas are based on the common good of all humanity.

Bishop Rob Nolan (Bishop of the Western Region, Anglican Diocese of Brisbane)

Bishop William Morris (Catholic Diocese of Toowoomba)

Sharon Kirk (Presbytery Minister Uniting Church in Australia Downs Presbytery)

Seasons of the Soul: Shrove Tuesday and Pancake Day

Pikelets count for Pancake Tuesday.

Go here for the recipe.

To-day is Shrove Tuesday otherwise known as Pancake Day.

For a poetic meditation by George Herbert please go here.