NATURAL BALANCE

I saw a wonderful programme on TV just now which led me to think about other things and here we are. This is an Adelaide idea - I don't know if they do it elsewhere. The idea is for 'natural burials' where the body is lowered into the ground in a fabric cloth and allowed to rot away naturally (unlike currently where the body is in a plastic bag inside the coffin!Yuk!). Then native trees and shrubs are planted at the site so, as time goes by, the whole area becomes rehabilitated to nature. It brought more than a few tears to my eyes as I thought about this because it is an answer to a question I have always had. I hate the idea of being buried in a cemetery and cremation is so polluting and violent. This is perfect. No headstones, nothing but nature and other dead people who care in the same, quiet way. Just dissolving into nature.

Nature is a quiet thing - no traffic, no loud talking, no machinery. Totally in balance. That is the key. We cannot escape to somewhere totally peaceful because nature incorporates all aspects of life, but each keeps the others in balance. Human lives seem to have become unbalanced and tip wildly from one path to another, often toppling off and skidding along in a ditch. Some of us seem to have sided with nature and are able to keep balanced even amongst others who are not. To me it seems supreme idiocy to follow the tumultuous man-made roller-coaster called 'modern living' or 'keeping up with the times' and forego the simple euphoria of a life with nature as your guide. Euphoria is not too extreme a word and is something I am constantly surprised at feeling when doing the simplest of things. Today, feeling the soft fronds of the fennel and smelling their fragrance as I touched them with my hands was such a moment. When I stood up I felt like I had been in another place. I am sure that is often the feeling people seek when they take certain drugs; in fact it happened to me once when I had given birth to one of our children. I was given a double dose of pethidine, accidentally, and it was fabulous and euphoric and just the same feeling as I get now naturally.

There are crevasses as deep as canyons between myself and most other people and I often cannot be bothered trying to bridge them but every now and then a spark leaps across and connects a fine web between. Even then I usually ignore it and go my own way - the distance is just too far. But sometimes it sticks and this is what blogs can do - create tiny filaments that then strengthen slowly and firmly, seemingly effortlessly. This is a new kind of nature. There are no pressures to conform or even to converse. Natural feelings and expressions sent out into the air seem to have a natural attraction, sometimes to people far away. These webs are being woven quietly and naturally, far and wide, and each filament is keeping the others balanced.

Surely this is the ultimate in 'modern living'. Future generations will look back and see that this is when everything started to turn around and 'keeping up with the times' began to mean 'learning to live in balance' because blogs began to join people into webs of support where no-one can topple off. Natural becomes mainstream.