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For two years we had been blessed with an amazing clifftop home on the sunny side of an equally amazing island. We have been enjoying sunrises and sunsets all year round.
While there, we were gifted with the arrival of our baby Zuva - born in a yurt we erected on the edge of the cliff as a birthing room.
It would be reasonable to ask, why would we move? Well, we had both sensed that it was time. It was partly motivated by the fact that this was a rental house, and since neither of us have a steady income stream our savings, from a house sale and a business sale, have been dwindling.
One day Kim wrote down a wish, that we find a way to live, rent-free in an ethical way. Three days later I was at a meeting of islanders who came together to discuss the possibility of establishing local power generation that could reduce the island resident's dependence on electricity that presently reaches us via a cable from the mainland. In the discussion a friend mentioned he knew of someone who was looking for somebody to housesit for them, in their very nice home in Church Bay.
I expressed keen interest and we soon had ourselves a new home. We knew it was on the market, but didn't really expect it to sell in the first week - oh well, next time we will be more specific and wish for a longer term situation :)
We are now looking again, as the settlement date is fast approaching. I wonder what the universe will offer next?
She is a sweety, a soft blue, round and solid. Born in 1956 with lots of life in her yet, she has outlasted many new cars that have cycled in a few short years between the production line and the scrap heap.
As my friend Tom said after we had towed her home, she is an iconic piece of New Zealand history, and deserves to be honoured. When I first arrived in New Zealand in 1968, there were an abundance of Morris Minors on the road - imported in parts and assembled here in readiness for many adventures in a young country with a wonderful future.
The way these cars were built makes them easy to work on, and even I can learn and understand the basics of how the internal combustion engine works in this case. She was running, registered with a Warrant of Fitness, up until just over a year ago, so while she has no spark at the moment it shouldn't take too long before she bursts into life again, to begin her next adventure as our second family car.
Wow! How to describe it? The weather was perfect and the constantly changing scenery was stunning. These three pics on this page were taken within a few hours of each other on the same morning.
It was a lone three day and three night clockwise trip around Waiheke Island. Camping on the beaches at Hooks Bay, North of Orapiu, and South of Church Bay. It was cool at nights, but a reasonable sleeping bag and a woolly hat took care of that. Carrying everything I needed offered a chance to reflect on needs and wants. I had been wanting to do this trip ever since arriving on Waiheke four years ago, and it was only a couple of weeks ago that I committed to doing it.
Gifts of fish, Penguins, sunsets, moonrises, misty mornings, campfires and lots of time to reflect on life choices.
During the days I was reading from The Healing Wisdom of Africa, and at night when it got dark, I listened to some audio files (yes, I took my iPod). One was called Target Africa and described the oil exploitation which is being carried on in Sub-Saharan Africa by the US oil companies, fully supported by the US military who have established their bases there already, and are doing military exercises in the country. Having just recently returned from a brief trip to Zimbabwe which I am incredibly grateful for, I wept to feel the opposites of these two sources of information about the same country - one expressing heart and passion and wisdom, and the other brute force and powerful self-interest and ignorance.
Another audio file I listened to was about localisation (as a response to climate change and peak oil), and I have written a little about this here. This one gave me more hope for the possibility that we can and will (some are starting to) re-structure our society along lines that assume more responsibility for our impacts, and supplying much more of our basic needs through local food and manufacturing initiatives.
Just out from Rocky Bay was this scene. It had me gasping with delight at the beauty of this island and its surrounds. It was the ultimate contrast to the large sponge-sized globs of detergent-based(?) foam and other signs of human waste that we pour into our oceans, and which I had paddled through the day before.
I can imagine doing this trip again, but next time with some friends.
As with all worthwhile journeys, this one began before pushing off from the shore - prompting questions and pushing at the borders of my comfort zone. The journey started as a vague dream some years ago, and then last week became a clear intention.
I was intending to leave this morning, but weather and a trip to the hospital for Kim's youngest child Hope, who has been suffering a viral attack for over a week, meant I had a little more time to pack the kayak properly, and double check I had all the essentials.
Our society is driven by a propaganda machine promoting every kind of consumption, and promising pleasure, fulfillment, and happiness through acquisition of external objects. But we are consuming the very planet we rely on for the survival of ourselves, and the generations that follow. We are living through the 6th greatest extinction in history and it has been caused by our culture.
Making mental lists, and adding things that I might need, I noticed the assumptions I make. I have slowly been regaining my perspective and learning to discriminate between needs and wants, impulses and desires - somehow this trip is a chance to reflect on life's basic needs and consider what is sustainable?
- What do I need to keep dry and warm? How much food do I need? What kind of food? What clothing? What kind of shelter?
Fears seem closely related to wants and needs. As I packed the kayak this afternoon I became aware of some subtle fears and what-if's. The unknowns can bring up fear, a useful survival mechanism to be sure. What if the wind comes up and blows me offshore? What if I hurt myself while out there alone? Then there are the lesser fears of simply being uncomfortable, of being cold, or wet, or having to sleep on a hard rocky beach, of being hungry.
It seems that it would be simpler to stay put in my warm and dry home on the hill, but I am prompted by an impulse similar to my friend's motto: "make change your friend," along with a desire to take some retreat time before our baby arrives in a few weeks.
I may get to push off tomorrow morning on the high tide.
About a year ago I came across the second book by Robert A. Monroe - Far Journeys.
It is an account of his out-of-body journeys over several decades, and the experience of others he has worked with in the research institute setup for the purpose of studying these astral travel phenomena.
A few days ago I re-read one particular piece of wisdom which he recounts thus:
The major underlying cause of human worry relates to the Law of Change. All human conflict relates to this law. Some worry that change will take place, others that it will not. Wars are fought to resist change or to accelerate it. At the individual level, this translates into various forms of indecision. Fear enters into the pattern, fear of the consequences of any decision or action . . . . . . To move away from the null point of indecision, take the position that any action or decision is better than none at all... To get the process underway without trauma, perform the following: - Make up an A list. Place on this list all of your worries, anxieties, and concerns about which you can do absolutely nothing. You cannot do anything about tomorrow's weather conditions...
- Make up a B list. Place on this list all of your worries, anxieties, and concerns about which you can do something today, things you can respond to with action, large or small.
- Make up a C list. Place on this list all of your needs, hopes, and desires, large or small, which have yet to be fulfilled.
Today perform the following functions:
- Take the A list and destroy it, and in doing so, dismiss all items contained therein from your consciousness.
- Take the B list and take some action, however large or small, to begin the resolution of each item contained therein. Several may be concluded immediately and thus can be released and dismissed from your consciousness. Others will be reduced in pressure because the flow has begun, a decision has been made.
- Take at least one item on the C list and perform one act, large or small, that moves you in the direction of such goal.
Perform this entire process each day until you have no A list, no B list and all of your energy and consciousness are devoted to items on your C list.
You will then complete serenely your human life purpose.
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On my C list this week was the desire to complete a round Waiheke kayak journey. With Kim only 10 weeks away from her due date I figured it was now or... so I am off tomorrow. I have allowed four nights of camping on the beaches to complete it.
Today we booked flights, and we leave on Monday (27th) to fly to Zimbabwe and the Kufunda Learning Village where we will stay for two weeks.
Visiting Africa, and helping in the area of child development is something that Kim has wanted to do for a very long time.
Last year she helped establish a children's orphanage in Sri Lanka after the Tsunami. According to the UN, there are more than 34 million orphans in Africa and some 11 million of them are orphaned by AIDS,
so I imagine there will be plenty to do.
Kim is 18 weeks pregnant now, so we thought it would be wise to go before the pregnancy got too far on and the baby consumed our attention for a while.
As well as helping out where I can, with a particular interest in permaculture, I am hoping to experience the culture of a small village population and see how they manage their own affairs. Considering what is happening in the country, I expect there will be plenty of examples of self-reliance I can learn from.
