Funnel of Freedom

Peter says it means that we have lots of chaperoned, intense programming at the start, and as we get farther into the program, we get more freedom. It's a funnel of freedom, narrow at one end and... OK, you get it.

Linnaeus

Our four-day orientation was held at an estate on Seven-Mile Beach near Byron Bay. The estate is run by Phil, a millionaire architect and entrepreneur, and he runs an estate the likes of which I have never seen. The estate consist of a huge open field, a pool house with an infinity pool and grass tennis court, a gorgeous community house that houses a kitchen and offices, and several posh beach homes, not to mention miles of pristine, private beach.

Linnaeus, as the estate is called, functions as a vacation home site for the extremely affluent, a $3-4 million price tag to own a home there. The laws governing the property dictate that it must be used for environmental education. This translates into the fact that Linnaeus runs with a miniscule carbon footprint, from the re-used materials that make up the architecture to the comprehensive recycling and composting practices that take place. We were lucky to have use of its five-star facilities.

On one of the days, a black and white magpie flew into our classroom. This might not be so strange, given that the room is completely open on two sides to the elements. However, Maggie, as she will henceforth be called, remained in the room, squawking at us, as if she had something important to say. This was comical the first couple of times, and ended when she was shooed out of the room. She returned shortly, though, much to Peter’s and the group’s surprise. We continued the lesson as planned, ignoring the intermittent, squawking comments from the polly-want-a-cracker gallery. After a few minutes of distraction, Peter attempted to scare is away, making noises, waving his arms, and stomping on the ground, anything short of kicking Maggie. His actions were futile. At the end, he gave up and shrugged, to which Maggie replied, “Squawk!” Maggie hung around for a while, and even followed us to the beach the next day, where she proceeded to swoop at the group and land momentarily on Mia’s head. Had the Aborigines seen this, they would have believed Maggie to be someone’s spirit in Magpie form, trying to relay us a message. I wonder what Maggie was trying to say.

At Linnaeus we explored the private beach and pool, and slept outside in tents. I slept in a tent with Yoshi and Brian, the two other guys on the program. The first night we face sweltering heat, the second, heat and a broken tent pole, the third, heat and another broken tent pole. On the third day our tent collapsed. We took another unused tent only to face heat, wind, rain, and about a hundred ants on the last night. Given that we had not had air conditioning in our room on the first night in Brisbane, this luck came as no surprise. There was a big push from the group to sleep on the beach, but Peter insisted that we should not. Apparently, people get drunk at night and drive around on the beaches, running over unsuspecting beach-nappers.

We woke up at 5:30 AM one day to go see sunrise at the Byron Bay lighthouse, which is attached to the Eastern-most point in Australia. Stepping outside our tent into the dark morning, I saw the milky way in the sky for the first time; it was spectacular. Following the celestial heavens up was a stunning sunrise atop the Byron Bay lighthouse hill. It made for an energizing morning.


Fire & Water

The Australian state of Victoria was hit two massive bush fires that have already claimed 181 lives and thousands of homes. The north of Australia is plagued by rampant flooding. There have been two recent shark attacks, occurrences that occur very infrequently. In the wake of mother nature’s wrath, the fires being the largest natural disaster in Australian history, my Sustainability and Environment program seems all the more pertinent. Is this how the environment is responding to ours unhealthy habits?


Knee-Deep Ecology

From the low-lying beach town that is Byron Bay, we travelled about an hour in our faithful blue and white bus, with a stand-in for Dave at the wheel. We went up into the rolling hills of the lush Australian coast, passing green fields growing various agricultural products. We finally arrived at a eucalypt forest with a rainforest growing up under it. The eucalypt trees come in several varieties, with the moist distinct being very tall, sturdy, smooth white trunks, with branches only sprouting above the rainforest canopy. The eucalypt trees cannot compete for sun with the rainforest cover, so as rainforest growth comes in, the eucalypt branches fall off. If the forest continues to grow uninterrupted, the area will become a true rainforest, and the eucalypts will die off; the eucalypts will only survive if a fire comes through the area to burn away the rainforest vegetation.

The eco-philosophy workshop was held at a rainforest meditation center and Buddhist retreat, where alcohol, drugs, and killing are prohibited, and honesty in any sexual encounters is a must. Eshana, formerly Elizabeth, was the charming and intelligent workshop leader, who is herself a deep ecologist. Our actual class was held in a large room in the middle of the forest; a vast hardwood floor was covered by an aluminium roof supported by wood beams cut from forest trees. As the name of the location suggests, it poured torrential rain for the duration of our two-day stay. The pounding downpour created a large din as it beat on the metal roof, making it impossible to hear Eshana at times. The whole group participated in a mix of discussion, role-playing, yoga, meditation, massage circles, games, and readings to internalize the broad spectrum of ecological philosophies.

Leeches. They are scary looking, and they suck your blood. They stick to everything. They are a single, black, blind tentacle, probing the air for your skin, ready to clamp onto your soft flesh and not let go; they are the vampire-pitbulls of the underworld. Realistically, they don’t hurt, are easy to take off, and are pretty harmless. Leeches. Meh.

Our night in the rainforest was spent in the attic of the kitchen building, the most substantial of the few structures at the retreat. About ten people lay their sleeping bags down on the attic floor, covered overhead by a tin roof. One side of the attic, the one I was facing, was protected from the forest by a large wire mesh. When we went to sleep, we were kept company by two large, black moths whose eyes glowed orange when reflecting the light of our headlamps. I awoke about two hours after I fell asleep so the sound of flapping. “Flith flith flith flith.” In my groggy, half-awakened state, I thought, “Those moths are loud.” It slowly dawned on me that there were many more than two of whatever was flapping their wings, and they were larger than moths. As my friend Brian turned on his headlamp, I witness about a dozen bats, flying not two feet above our heads, zigzagging around the attic, squeaking their sonar voices, bumping into the tin roofing. My initial fear turned into awe, and the bats left twenty minutes later. The moths were gone, too.

The next day resumed with more rain and leeches, more thought and discussion. I was unsure where I stood with eco-philosophy at the beginning of the workshop, and now I am even more unsure, but at least I have more to think about.


By-Rain Bay

Just after the eco-philosophy workshop, we have a free, unfortunately dreary day in Byron Bay. It is still raining, and I thought we had left the rain when we left the rainforest. It is frustrating that we cannot get rain down in Victoria, where it is dearly needed. Today consisted of food shopping, trying to find Brian underwear (“undies” in Australian), and homework. Also, I found a place to fix my computer! It should be ready by Monday night, at which point I will be able to upload photos (it is now Saturday). I am off to Melbourne midweek for a sustainability fair next weekend. We begin the day-train ride on Wednesday, amidst the fires to hazy, smoky Melbourne.