Looking Out to the Hills
(written in 1984)

I am looking out to the hills from the edge of the sporting grounds. On the other side of the fence, and I guess where I am sitting as well, feels raw and free; hard, but easy. The birds, the shrubs, the dry grasses, and the hills are ablaze with bright sunlight and raw life. Every part of the landscape knows the wind and the sun and death and life. Yet it has no feelings at all.

It makes me think of a large area of thick mangroves in the middle of nowhere. There are no roads, no tracks, no directions - just mangroves and bright sunlight. There are feelings it evokes, of isolation and solitude, of freedom, and timelessness - of not belonging to anything but the landscape, the immediate surroundings. Nothing may ever exist beyond the immediate environment.

The fence in front of me is rusty and dry. The wires are loose and rest there without any tension.

And what happens to individual plants within the landscape, individual entities amongst a whole sea of entities? They don't really seem like individuals. They are just there. The landscape feels somehow mechanical even though it is primarily biological.

There is some blue smoke rising slowly in the distance, slowly dispersing and moving left with the breeze. I can also see a heat haze in the distance, inspiring a feeling of reality and that things are happening now (even though time doesn't seem important at all).

The heads of the grasses dance gracefully and joyfully in front of the distant trees.

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At My Favourite Fig Tree
(written in 1984)

And now I'm at my favourite Moreton Bay Fig tree again.

I love that smell, that vibrant, rich, tangy, exotic smell of life. And even though the smell is strong, it certainly doesn't annoy like many manufactured smells do. To get the smell properly, you have to sit here for a while and really breathe it into your nostrils.

The large size of the tree structure is always refreshing. Even the cries of the birds here are exotic, clear, confident, evocative of rainforest stillness. There is a wonderful feeling of cosiness here, sitting inside, under its huge spread. To sit under the tree is like sitting in a self-enclosed, unique environment. In many ways it is just too much.

Everywhere there is health, peace of mind, a tremendous sensibility, and too much of an intangible "something" here to be able to write a lot about it. The environment here is subtle and free with all the mystery of life, all the grandeur of life.

There is no confusion here; not in my mind. It also seems to speak to me. It can tell me what is real, what is worth doing, what is good, what is laughable.

A little fruit fly flies out into a patch of sunlight and then seems to disappear again.

There is moss on the huge zig-zagging buttress roots.

The ground is littered with decaying leaves, decaying fruit, twigs, bark and aroma.

Some of the leaves on the ground have little pools of water trapped within them, and within these little pools would be micro worlds of minute animals, etc.

Such is the richness of life!

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A marvellous world!
(written in 1986)

When was the last time you "stopped" to take in the magic of sunlight glittering off the changing textured surface of a calm sea?
Or perhaps to study the structure of a blade of grass, or a small flowering plant, or to study the structure of a tree's trunks and branching?

When was the last time you spent free time leisurely studying the natural world around you?

You might be surprised at just how enjoyable and rejuvenating it can be to your well being. And what about just looking at the world around, at all the remarkable spectacles that are about at all times, no matter where you are?

To sit and enjoy the beautiful warmth of sunlight.

To feel the caress of a gentle breeze over all parts of my body.

It is such simple things like these that I believe give the greatest meaning to life.

To look out at the horizon and study the enormous amount of detail and width of view.

It is a time of seeing and feeling "size", feeling the enormity of the world we live in.

Enjoying the glow of colour that strikes us, in this real, living world.

The beautiful sounds of birds, or wind travelling over long grasses.

The mysterious sounds of wind through pine trees.

The fact that everything makes total sense.

Everything is a result of all the effects acting upon each microscopic piece of substance, in every micro-increment of time. Movement, change, rhythm, great forces within our immediate world, the flowing forces of wind, water currents and movements, tides, the rise and fall of the sun and the moon, the constant continual bombardment of ocean waves on beaches, etc. - a continually changing and un-resting world. This whole, natural world.

What a wealth of interest and vitality! What a marvellous world, full of remarkable events, and spectacles!

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The Free World
(written in 1986)

I love the free world, with free growing trees, and freely moving air, with freely moving clouds and clear, relaxed blue skies. I love the look of sunlight on the world, even the look of sunlight on a factory wall looks superb and comforting. There is a freedom there, an aesthetic, the beauty in the glow and warmth of light. Smells, freedom of vision, and randomness and the free sunlight.

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