Undergrowth #5 > THE HUMAN ECOLOGY by Undergrowth

a river becomes an irrigation canal // animals become livestock // forests become carbon sinks //

s billboard // gardens become a luxury // ecology becomes economy // people become consumers // tribes become

target markets // art becomes advertising //technology becomes a drug // religion becomes a brand name // travellin

ng becomes tourism // nature becomes scenery // man becomes a stranger //this is the human ecology

photos oliver dunlop

undergrowth five :: human ecology

editorial/ cloudburst

spirits

monkey tales: red

lovers

the tides of the sun

ah, white man, have you any sacred sites?

bush flowers

after the fall

spirits

taking a dive: confessions of a dumpster diver

pikatja story

future cities project

nepabunna to adelaide

god is an awesome god

river pilgrims

city of angels

monkey tales: yellow

mr history

hey newstart, thanks for the good times

windcurrents: an interview with peter adams

spirits

monkey tales: blue

101

cloudburst

there is steam rising from the bitumen. i can smell its soft ghost vapours. rainclouds overhead pass away again. birds glean the parkʼs leftover crumbs. modems scream information, talking in non stop binaries. cars flock past in petroleum hordes. droplets landing on windshield and her face crash. trees cheer, waving their limbs in the wind to music of the scenery. auto-electrics blast stereo hiphop communiques. bass rumbles, muffled like censorship within airconditioned windows. the underground murmurs too, with subway transit flowing through. beneath the cityʼs skin. Season lay with her ear to the ground, eyes closed and elsewhere. gentle smile blessing lips. body cushioned upon the grassland sanctuary she had found deep within the ecology of commerce and corporate highlands. all around the city sang its ballad of progress and drummed industrial soundscapes. beautiful in their coarse texture and random monotony. a wall of sound, immersive as any ocean. she drank it in. beads of moisture roll down her skin. her clothes wet and sculptured against the curves of her body, caught in the cloudburst, happily. the water slowly melted down her face to cheek and lips tasted. Clean. She raised a hand from the ground to her breast. feeling her heart. Beating softly. A humble metronome.

heavens kiss the earth

mountains grow daily we just aren始t equipped to see this (apes clothed in techno) the ocean follows the moons lead (and so does her cycle) seasons stroll in through the open door of hemispheres curled in soft embrace to the windspirit (water carriers) tectonics shift and mumble wise cracks (lubricated by oil wells) we始ve named and numbered the everyday, constructed walls to box in time passing notes of perfect melody (is this moonday a holy day only because a calendar tells us we don始t have to work?) i like the idea of forgetting needless routines and celebrating the games of sacramental daylight...

(remembering)

Monkey Tales: Red by Rak Razam

“Shee-oot, juz look at that aurora going off, my God, have you ever seen anything so beautiful? It’s energized nitrogen molecules, y’know, hanging down low in the atmosphere and gettin’ bombarded with electrons from the geo-magnetic storms. Stretches it’s red spectral lights away from the poles and right across the whole damn continent, ‘aint seen nuttin’ as beautiful as red skies at night, no wonder they thought it was the End of Times.” “Is that what happened last time, Red, back when they had History?” “You better believe it, girlie. It’s why the Trybe went underground, juz so’s we could have moments like these without a tee-vee screen between us.”

“S’nice, ya. The way it shimmers and moves, like it’s dancing,” Blue said, staring up at the sky.

Blue liked listening to Red’s stories, the way his voice would lilt and pause and stretch out each letter for extra emphasis. She especially liked the way the lines on his weathered face crinkled out around his eyes and mouth like a spiderweb as he talked, mixing with the tattoos nestled amongst the wiry red hair of his beard and by the hairline of his dredds. Red, the circle-maker of the Trybe, the magick man. As he stood there in the cornfield in his red environmental suit, stripped back at the arms and legs and braving the cold night air, she couldn’t help but stare at the bold tribal markings twisting and twining around his tight, sinewy body. Each tattoo was a magickal sigil shaped from the letters in the name of the outdoor parties he’d helped put on, like a roadmap of his long seasons of doof. Each tattoo mirrored by a crop circle imprinted on fields across Europe, ghostechoes of free festivals and travelling sound systems blowing in the wind. The Trybe had long ago developed a visual language to advertise their parties and music to those in the know, a sigil-language the old skool corporate fashion makers couldn’t understand, much less appropriate. They never saw or heard them at work, yet in the light of day these strange symbols would spring up in fields like zen mushrooms after a fresh rainfall, marking an undergound party’s passing.

She stood there shivering on the perimeter of the cornfield and looked out at the dark forest and fields of wild flowers, mint and hemp all bathed in a blood red light as the wind cut through. The field rose up on the hill from the road and was perfectly placed for viewing from the dancefloor below. Red had dowsed the spot earlier in the day with his old wire coat hangers and confirmed a high bandwith leyline pulsing with good juju running right through. It was important to flatten the circle from the inside out to produce a radial lay and follow the natural energy flow. If it’s facing the right way then the party will rock. If it’s formed against the flow of energy, you can get headaches, naseua, demonic visions, paranoia, bad-trip shit to the max, Red taught her that, along with all the other stuff a young trance gypsy coming of age needed to know.

“It’s a good omen, but that cold’s a commin’. We’d better get to work, ya,” Red said, moving in an angled, loping stride so as not to leave an obvious path to the centre of the ﬁeld. “Now, lots of people say that crop circles are caused by sunspot activity, or UFOs, and even though that’s a load of bosh it’s not the point. We’re creating a rorsarch pattern for people to read whatever they want into, ya? The circles are Art in it’s purest form, understand? Never deﬁne them or you’ll blow the vibe, leave that to the group mind when you’re dancing down there...” Shee-oot. Suddenly Red felt a sadness upon him as he looked at Blue. Her eyes had taken on an indigo glow from the aurora and as she stood there in the cold night air, trying to blow smoke rings with her breath, she looked so much like her mother at that age it hurt.. “This is a special night for you, so I’ll let you in on a secret or two, ya?

The stars are alive, see? And they’re communicating to us, ya? Light is information and this red shift is just the Sun’s way of communicating with the Earth, of telling a tale to us monkeys. Look - there, that’s Sirius, ya, the dog-star. It was always your mother’s favourite. Had lots to say about Sirius, she did. Where we came from, where we’re travelling to, she used to say.” His eyes sparkled as he chuckled. “Oh, she was like a fire. A bushfire that knew no bounds, feared no man and lived to burn. She was a Blue, like you, but she was the brightest dancer of her season and men fell in love with her as easy as breathing.” He grabbed the stalk-stomper, a two metre plank with a rope attached at each end, forming a loop, staked out a barbeque stick and attatched a length of metallic surveyor’s tape through the loop. It rattled and whooped in the high winds like a banshee in the silence that fell upon them. They began walking around in a radial pattern, forming first the inner circle, then the outer perimeter followed by some connecting lines, silent all the while. When they had finished Blue looked back at what they had created. Inside each circumference the corn lay bent but not broken, its still-growing stalks swept into a matted alien pattern, like a vinyl record with a pendulum hanging from the bottom, or some type of strange organic key on it’s side...

“You’re going to do ﬁne, Blue, don’t be scared,” Red said, holding her ice cold hand. “Just trust your instincts out there and you’ll dance up a storm, just like your mother. But remember to look up on the hill and see old Red’s sigil, ya? Promise me.” “I promise.” “Alright then. Better get that Dome set up right quick. Go ﬁnd yer Yello friend. Go now.”

She gave him a quick peck on his grizzled cheek and ran off through the fields, leaving him standing on one foot and dragging the other in a 360 degree arc off to the side of the main sigil, forming the ‘grapeshot’ tag, same vanity as graffiti artists in signing their work. Red held a long, curved blade in his left hand and cut seven single stalks for each of the three circles of the formation, carefully rolling them between his worn and blistered thumb and forefinger and stroking them until the stems started to bend at a right angle. Like an origami master he twisted them into crude monkey shapes after the totem of their Trybe then placed them in the ‘grapeshot’. “Yep, ‘ain’t nuttin’ finer than a red night sky. Less it’s a Blue dancer,” he said to himself, watching her race through the fields and down to the domez below...

text: tim parish

it was a time of parties following the suns departure the cats come out to play, burning their records through speakers, raising the temperature as it lowers outside, my friend sam thinks everyone is trying to shack up for winter, find a body to share the second pillow with, perhaps - but when arenʼt they? last night i walked home from a disco of self confessed dags, happy to leave loud celebration of trashy fashion and 80ʼs tuning to enter the cool chill of winters ocean, streets lights illuminated the tiny rain molecules dancing in the windspirit, snowflakes aspiring, dark bitumen corridors shined in leather smiles, the night cloak enveloped a sleeping city houses hibernating a calm overflow welling up inside my heart learning to listen

the tides of the sun by bob nekrasov

The dayʼs passing really fast. Iʼm staying in a friendʼs apartment in Aoxomoxoa while sheʼs vacationing out on the coast. I cleaned the kitchen and did my laundry all morning. Now Iʼm writing, and watching my pair of twomonth-old boa constrictors. The wide boa, the one that ate two mice yesterday, is halfway out of the wicker basket. The thin boa shrank away from the sun, has white-lidded eyes. Is she sick? 12:59. A car drives by outside. Which way? I donʼt know. Up the steep street. On the sunny terrace behind the apartment, my damp clothes wave in the wind. “El Comisariato,” says a plastic grocery bag I hung up to dry. What could it mean? Objects talk in silent voices. The couchside clock says itʼs 13:00. The cover of Carmenʼs Marie Claire magazine says ʻ£50,000 worth of free gifts including designer fashion & beauty FREE for every reader,ʼ and, ʻPlus, sex expectations The rules of affairsʼ, But, my dear magazine, itís got to be pointed out that affairs are unruly. Itʼs 13:02. Boa moving around only slightly, whatʼs he/she looking at/thinking about, anyway? I wonder about this. 13:03. Coughing green phlegm in the back of my throat healthy! Mariri. Scratchmyneck listen to piano music ﬂowing out of the radio next door, the clank of this apartmentʼs metal front door when a gust comes through, the unrhythmic crinkle of that El Comisariato plastic bag ﬂexing in the breeze, little girl next door calling her Mama, a rooster crows, a car starts up, rolls by, in neutral, downhill down the stone

paved street, it is 13:05. A car is beeping now, and thereʼs a thrum throb of unknown music on a car stereo. Thereʼs that piano music, then the whistling, suddenly, of Christmas Eve fireworks. Four or five whistle as they fall, up above. The womanʼs face on the cover of Marie Claire stares out at me with live eyes. Her magazine offers stories on “Women forced to marry their neighbour” and “Where women get a free man with every holiday.” This is a start, but all men must be free. Under the wide windows rests the beloved, comfortable, broken-down but indestructible plaid couch. Now my notebooks and novels are lying on it, fast asleep. Itʼs 13:11. Newsflash: the boa with two mice inside has turned around, heading back into the basket, on the move as I write these words. It moves as if in slow motion. Itʼs like a 3-D Discovery Channel in here. Wild, wild animals on the little table by the couch. 13:13. Why are these minutes flying by so fast? Stop. Cut. Freezeframe. Slowdown. Stop. My neck aches. A planeʼs flying by overhead, or is that a truck with no muffler? Pause to breathe, scratch, write about the gooseflesh on my arms, simbolo convencional, leyenda explicativa. At 13:17, on the street, women laughing! A man yells “Ho!” A young girl screams in fun, then purrs! A wolf whistle! Purr! Movement of water in pipes, Fabian, the neighbor two stories down, is taking a shower. Animal noises by the kids in the street. 13:19.

I turn to a fresh page in my notebook. Outside, a wolf whistle, a whistling wolf! Another! A yelp and a catlike, birdlike purr! A chill melts down my back. I turn and watch, through the window, a gathering of gray clouds. Thereʼs to be no more sun today, it seems. An airplane is coming from the north... and... now it is going, away, south, into the city over the high apartment buildings on Luis Borges Avenue. 13:20. Iʼm going to put on my shirt and bring the laundry inside. Ten years ago, I flicked a lighter flame to light her way as she stood up, wet with bathwater, to get a candle off the sink... but thatʼs another story. This is journalism of yelps on the street where you canʼt tell if itʼs a human or another animal making the noise, and the black ink plunges red and green onto the page, mentioning kings and wars and fountain pens, and the sunʼs out again and she or he purrs and mimics a seagull with uncanny accuracy, or is it a bird and not a child? Dogs yelping, fighting, woofing under the sun, thatʼs certainly genuinely canine. I wonder whatever happened to Andy Nofsinger. Got to make a mental note to myself not to make any more mental notes to myself. I just went upstairs to organize books and clothing, moving around in this fantastic body as if I just received it out of the air, a conjuring trick. That kid makes unusual noises, almost unreal. Experimenting with chirping purrs, human life is never going to die! Yelp! 13:35 a baby is carried past my front door, burbling, weʼre all on the same wavelength, somehow, including Fabian the downstairs neighbor, a ballet dancer from Paraguay who recently got back from a month and a half in the Dominican Republic and just put on some music, or somebody did, indistinct, general, like a heartbeat. There went that baby again, and off goes a dog, Guau, guau, guau! and an airplane cometh and my back aches somewhat and, and, and, itʼs 13:38.

Close the snake basket and go outside. Pitufo and Hada, the towns in the valley out there, are veiled by smog or mist. Iʼm out on the terrace now, biting my lower lip and feeling the breeze ruffle the fur on my legs. Fleeting melody of a songbird crossing the heaven sky. A ventarr or big wind blew one of the blankets I was airing out right off the wall, but, fortunately, it landed on the other terrace below instead of in the ravine - ʻItʼs a cosmic wavelength flowerpot thing, man. Sooner or later Iʼm going to have to face it.ʼ Tranquil, serene mountains in the purple distance, they get stressed out sometimes just like the rest of us, it just takes place over hundreds of thousands of years. You know, once in a while, I feel like Iʼm starting to make sense. Existing, man. Getting played like an accordion by the cosmic flow. Sometimes itʼs angels, sometimes itʼs olive oil, or a crushed, empty box of Marlboro Lights, the tunes I play. Metallic noises of empty barrels clank up from the valley, bang, bong! And the next door neighbors are playing agreeable music. Theyʼre standing out on their terrace, conversing. Thereʼs laughter. Itʼs a fine, gleaming day, the earth smiles. The music is Arabic, exhilarating. The neighbors are Chaquas, mountain Indians. Heʼs speaking in Castillian about something that happened in the Supermaxi supermarket, and the women laugh! A giant cloud shadow looms goofily up the hill at the other side of this nearer valley. Half

the world plays the clown, half the world is laughing. A car alarm goes off, comical, on the soundtrack of the day, suddenly becomes an earsore, and is shut off. Ow... colours are frying in the sun, melting, running all over my vision. The huge sun bears down on our tiny earth. The crinkling of that plastic bag on the line behind me, Iʼd better not do anything about it until Iʼm really annoyed. At last, itʼs 14:00. I can breathe easy again. And then a vultureʼs breathtaking glide takes my breath away over air currents that rise beyond my red sneakers in the valley. Hot sunlight on the page, on the body. The neighboursʼ radio is playing Coolioʼs ʻGangsta Paradiseʼ, for which Iʼm glad. Gangstas are shooting in Los Angeles at this moment, swelling throngs in heaven and hell, vultures are zipping through the air between my bodyʼs eyes and the cement bridge faroff across the river below; a fly kissed my knuckle as if I were already dead. Vultures fly, crooked and high, and my body glows like a filament when the current of the sun goes through it. Holy chorus of paradise rises up like a prayer and fades out. A housefly like Tupac Shakur on the page, the sunʼs reflection in my thumbnail, the sunlight glancing off the length of my Bic pen to shimmer in the shadow of my writing hand. Mournful music next door, the manʼs gone, a womanʼs alone, scrubbing something with a brush, isnʼt that always the way. Photons collide with molecules at the surface of my skin, potentially threatening ultraviolet damage. Iím too hot, unbutton my shirt,

a bird calls and I approach the end of this poem, and death. Itʼs these city streets Iʼve been walking up and down, how can they not make a human tense? All that noise and exhaust crying out at the sky. Which, itself, ends up being, just as it was before, inexplicably, blue. The clouds are alive today. Pouring themselves into each other. Moving fast, rolling and unrolling, like a special effect. The dance of levitating water. Levitationʼs a great thing to do, but how? Iʼm sitting on the living room ﬂoor now, mostly water, not levitating. Itʼs 14:21. Thereʼs the snake basket right next to the clock. Thereʼs the Marie Claire magazine. That purring kid purrs outside, itʼs a rainforest out there. Someone just rang the doorbell. The tides of the sun.

ah, white man, have you any sacred sites? by Denis Kevans

Ah, white man, I am searching for the sites, sacred to you, Where you walk, in silent worship, and you whisper poems too, Where you tread, like me, in wonder, and your eyes are filled with tears, And you see the tracks you’ve travelled down your fifty thousand years. I am searching around Australia, I am searching, night and day, For a site, to you so sacred that you wont give it away For a bit of coloured paper, say a Church you’re knocking down, Or the Rocks, your countries buirthplace, by the Bridge, in Sydney town. Your cathedrals I have entered, I have seen the empty aisles Where a few knelt down in sorrow, where were all the children’s smiles? Big cathedrals, full of beauty, opal glass, and gleaming gold, And an old man, in an overcoat, who had crept in from the cold. Your schools, I drifted through them, heard the sound of swiching canes, Heard the yell of angry teachers crushing flowers in their brains, Heard the bark up on the rostrum where the powers had their say, Wouldn’t children’s hearts be sacred, though they’re made, like mine, of clay? Where’s your wonder? Where’s your worship? Where’es your sense of holy awe? When I se those little children torn apart by fear of war, What is sacred to you, white man, what is sacred to your clan? Are your totems rainbow feathered? Is there dreaming in you, man?

tim parish the cityʼs weeds are really bushflowers thoughts breathe through us the wind whispers poems of meteorology the raincloud kisses the ground i write footprints on the bitumen with the story of my lifeblood coursing an open book writes itself with oxygen and this typewriter my heartbeat provides the rhythms for our dancing mind... somewhere a goat spirit is hopping over the sculpted face of rocks, carved like fingerprints upon whaleskins, barefoot and shirtless, eyes wide as highbeam, senses open floodgates letting through the waves of change. somewhere pirate enclaves of butterflies are plotting conspiracies of hope ignoring the destiny of apes possessed by possessions sold robotics by billboard marketing machines somewhere wind turbines are committing revolution amidst the corporate highlands which rise from the ground like termite mounds, and far below i wonder, wandering tides, holding my breath in the ocean we call data, breathing rumours of magick i find scribbled on the brick veneer with love and aerosol cultivating weeds which look to me like flowers

after the fall joel catchlove

I’ve had apocalypse on my mind recently. Perhaps it’s been partly catalysed by the results of the recent federal election, but I think that one of the main triggers has been reading David Holmgren’s amazing book Permaculture: principles and pathways beyond sustainability. Holmgren writes a lot about energy descent and the fact that the world is, quite simply running out of energy. Even the relatively conservative National Geographic suggests in its June 2004 edition that we could be at the end of cheap oil in ﬁve years. The catch is though, our “way of life”‚ the very same way of life we are advised to protect from the scourge of “terror”, steam-rolls on as though the resources we depend upon both for energy and for so many of the materials from which we construct our world are unlimited. For Holmgren, permaculture provides a foundation through which we can seek to become more sustainable, and descend ethically‚ from our current energy peak into a low energy future. It’s not strictly apocalypse Holmgren’s talking about, but rather another stage in a cycle. Typically, I think my visions of this future are somewhat more fantastical and extreme than he would suggest. But even so, I think it’s important, as always, that we can imagine alternatives to our current path. And remember that this destructive path, regardless of its own self-conﬁdence and determination, will eventually be forced to change. It reminds me of a quote I saw painted on a wall in Marree, in South Australia’s North, a statement from the 1981 International Conference of NGOs on Indigenous Peoples and Land: “If transnationals and colonialist governments continue to defy the natural order of things in their quest for material wealth, Mother Earth will retaliate. The whole environment will retaliate and the abusers will be eliminated. Things come back full circle. Back to where they started. This is the prophecy of all Indigenous Peoples.”

I have a vision of energy suddenly running out, as if no one was aware that there were limits to oil.

I have a vision of energy suddenly running out, as if no one was aware that there were limits to oil. Great queues of enraged motorists and their cars gridlocked for kilometres around petrol stations whose pumps are dry. The attendants making off through a back door with coats full of cigarettes and chicken heroes. It would be a hot day, of course. A blazing 45 degree day in the middle of an Adelaide summer and in a rare act of anarchy, residents of the leafy Eastern suburbs would take to ďŹ re hydrants with the last moments of battery power in their chainsaws and hedgetrimmers (perhaps they could decant a little fuel from their leaf blowers, before trying to trade it for a broom), in a futile effort to cool off. Other motorists would see the massive angry queues snaking from the petrol stations and in a mass of panic turn and head for the hills until their tanks ran dry. The hulks of family station wagons, hatchbacks and four wheel drives left to rust, clumped in ditches on the side of the road, a fading shadow radiating from the centre of civilisation. They become fewer, the further out you go, scattered between sprays of shattered glass and the thick black snakes of unpeeled tires. Turning ochre with rust as they sink beneath the grass and shifting earth. Suburbia has been conquered in some parts by plants. Thick hedges of ornamental roses spring up unpruned and sprawl across entire streets like blackberry bushes, while the dry brown grass of summer ďŹ lls the cracks in footpaths. New, strange, unexpected ecosystems, born of European roses, lantana, bougainvillea and one or two lost glory vines hybridise in backyards, overrun by sparrows, starlings and pigeons stretching their wings in the shade beneath the matted vines. Further out, beyond the thickets of aloe vera escaped from cracked terracotta pots, pastures slowly, carefully grow back into forests, dropping branches across twisted barbed wire fences and snapping off fence posts with three hundred years of carefully increasing tension.

pigeons stretching their wings in the shade beneath the matted vines. Further out, beyond the thickets of aloe vera escaped from cracked terracotta pots, pastures slowly, carefully grow back into forests, dropping branches across twisted barbed wire fences and snapping off fence posts with three hundred years of carefully increasing tension. Perhaps because it’s where I’ve spent such a ridiculous amount of my life, but I wonder about supermarkets after apocalypse. They’re environments so dependent on external energy - for illumination, for artiﬁcial temperatures, for security. Everything from the climate to the customers is controlled by external regulations. Muzak, air-conditioning and electronic gates that swing shut while a feminine monotone berates you like a long-suffering, computerised mother for trying to exit through the entry. But after the fall, the supermarket is dark. Pitch black, shelves stripped of two minute noodles and jars of pasta sauce by looters (most of them former employees with torches plundered from aisle ten). The freezer units long ceased buzzing and the boxes of meat pies and dim sims are soggy, pulpy and collapsing into themselves. The food, despite its preservatives begins to seep out through the spots where the door seals have begun to perish. Liquid butter has lined the ﬂoor around the edge of the refrigerators and cartons of milk lie burst on their side, grey mould growing down the shelves and reaching out across the lino.

Tubs of French Vanilla, Swiss Chocolate and Black Cherry yoghurt bulge as they ferment between shards of sunlight reaching in under sealed ﬁre exits and through the vents of still extractor fans. Some have burst splits in their foil lids and sprayed ﬂecks of now-dried fruits of the forest across bulbous cartons of orange and mango juice. A colony of bats has set up in the meat room, raining guano onto the sticks of mettwurst stacked untouched below. And the exit signs, a little mossy around the edges and one hanging at an angle from a ceiling damp from leaked air-conditioning, look set to buzz greenly for the next 250,000 years, their radioactive warning labels peeling away in the moist warmth.

The hulks of family station wagons, hatchbacks and four wheel drives left to rust...

clocks chuckle to the sound of robots working tick tock tick tock they tick off the seconds as they pass times authoritarian big brother the ďŹ rst nail in the cofďŹ n of the tao which can never die except in the minds of men ruled by their minds and the machines which have ceased to function, which sit listless as matter ďŹ nally content collecting moss. becoming stone.

tim parish

another world is happening

taking a dive: confessions of a dumpster diver

I found out about dumpster diving through the blockading movement and other activists living on the fringe... On my first ever dumpster dive the dairy section was all layed out on top... it was full of ice and in then ice was every type of cheese you can imagine, varieties of milk and meats - a real smorgasboard! The food was a better quality than I would normally eat if I bought it myself, and from that day on I was hooked... Every supermarket has a dumpster and will throw out about 10 cubic metres of rubbish a day. You can easily get ten boxes of food out of that if youʼre dedicated... Thatʼs why itʼs called dumpster diving - if you want ten boxes youʼve got to dive in! Dumpster diving mostly consists of filling boxes on the back of your bike and reaching into the dumpsters from the top... Different sections of the supermarket throw rubbish out that create different layers to choose from. Thereʼs dry goods, the freezer section, fruit and veggies, etc ... Whichever section has thrown out produce last is on top to choose from... Your most perishable goods are the most common to find - dairy, fruit and veggies and meats.

People have a perception itʼs bad for you - but itʼs not. Your body will tell you if things like meat arenʼt ﬁt for consumption - if youʼve got a good immune system, that is, which the standard healthy person has. The taste is something you learn over time - if the meatʼs no good your body will tell you - donʼt eat it. Winter is better for dumpster diving as the frozen foods keep longer than in the blazing hot summer. And the meat is also great for pets - dogs and cats love it! I guess I ﬁnd dumpster diving lots more fun than walking down the aisles of a supermarket... Itʼs a lucky dip and itʼs great for cooking because you have to think what to do with these foods instead of what food am I going to buy... so it helps you get creative in the kitchen. You use what you get instead of what you want - kind of like an urban ecosystem... Having a majority of dumpster divers in the house you always have an abundance - heaps of food as opposed to an empty fridge... We actually have so much dumpster food we had to get an extra fridge just to store it. We have three course dumpster meals every couple of weeks and we typically feed up to twelve people. We have a tradition - half way through the meal we tell people itʼs from the dumpster... We havenʼt had anyone refuse the food yet - and they always come back for more!

you use what you get instead of what you want...

There are a few rules of ettiquette to follow for the perfect dumpster dive. Donʼt go too late ʻcause youʼll miss out - the other dumpster divers will get in ﬁrst. Thereʼs quite a few houses living off the Barkly St dumpsters alone... I go at ﬁve or six in the afternoon. If you go at say, 11:00 PM youʼll really have to dig. The second rule is you always leave a dumpster as clean, or cleaner than you found it. If you draw attention to yourself then the next time you come back the bins will be locked. The security guards sometimes tell you that youʼre trespassing or stealing and then other guards stop and have a chat with you because theyʼre bored... One dumpster diver I heard about got given $20 by one security guard to go and get some hot food!!! The supermarkets donʼt have any issues with us generally, as long as theyʼre not aware of us... The health laws make it illegal for the shops to give away the food - a practice that used to happen but has now ceased... So now thereʼs a hell of a lot of waste that doesnʼt get recycled... Youʼve got about 10 cubic metres thrown away every day in every supermarket around Australia - and one cubic metre of that is good food. This is the big supermarkets, your Woolies and Coles and all that.... Which

considering the amount of food that they turn over itʼs actually very little waste compared to how many cubic metres walk out the doors in plastic bags! Another good source is fruit and veggies markets... And if you want to get really keen you go to industrial areas and take a car. You can get food wholesalers throwing out pellets at a time instead of boxes. Youʼll get a car full of one thing instead of boxes of different things... And over time you can really stock up the house... I guess the biggest hinderance to dumpstering is either the cages around the bins or locked bins. Generally when theyʼre locked or in a cage its to stop people throwing household rubbish in a bin, not because of the dumpster diving because we leave it neat. You can often take the pin out of the back of the hinge of locked bins and then put it back as you found it, with no damage... Break and entering a dumpster bin - thatʼd be a funny one in court... The best dumpster ﬁnd that I know of was recently, when 22 cases of beer was dumpstered by a Footscray squat just before a beneﬁt gig... which was great! Theyʼd fallen off the pellet and one or two beers had broken in the box and that messed up all the labels on the box so they ʻhadʼ to throw it out... Thereʼs been lots of other scores - like the 20 k of chocolate we found... Five different types of chocolate bars! Pasta

and veggies are always plentiful... Once we found six electric toothbrushes and 20 k of ice next to each other... The toothbrushes ended up as Christmas presents.... There was a dumpster cafe in Sydney near Broadway, from what I hear... There were some squats that joined up in food network and they put on a dumpster cafe every week from what they found... Thereʼs also been dumpster picnics and swap meets in Edinburgh Gardens in Fitzroy. Itʼs like a big cook up in the park... the community coming together through food... The weirdest thing Iʼve heard of being found dumpster diving is girlʼs underwear... A friend found them... Iʼve found stuff like worming tablets for the cat.. And smoked salmon is always a good ﬁnd, and not uncommon... I donʼt dumpster dive because I canʼt afford food. l either get food out of a bin or buy it on a plate in a restaurant. In my day job Iʼm a consultant and youʼre meant to be a good corporate citizen and all that, but to me this IS good corporate citizenship... To me, dumpster diving is a way of reducing your environmental impact by living off rubbish. You reduce demand so thereʼs a few less meals getting transported into the city and getting thrown out at the same time... Itʼs probably the next best thing to not having a kid in reducing your impact on this planet....

pukatja story by beth sometimes

People! I’m sure you’ve heard a whisper or maybe you know it firsthand? Something crazy, something mad and beautiful and heartbreaking is going on in this land, Australia. The base, the bass, the beginnings of humanity on this island... still suffering! Anangu, aboriginal people, struggling in the aftermath of a profound cultural loss. Young people are in desperate confusion, hanging between two worlds while their parents and grandparents are clinging so strong, but finding their tjukurpa (law) powerless against the new evils afflicting their people. I find it hard to talk about people in this way ‘cause I know some of them as individuals and as friends after spending over a year in Ernabella, (AP Lands, North West SA), but to get a story across it must be so. In some ways though, the word “they” is good because it demonstrates how very much it is still “US” and “THEM” and will be for a long time, sadly. The many interactions I have observed between white and black in this community bear witness to an undying mistrust from both parties, both blatant and subtle.

I found myself unable to ever completely tear myself from this notion... It’s like that. We are so different... It could be a luscious and appreciated thing, and it is in little pockets, but out there at the coal face it’s ugly. Why don’t that mean old government provide any training WHATSOEVER for white Australians working out there? My first weeks there were the craziest of my life exhausted by the immensity of the difference, the poverty; there was the third world in a bubble inside what I thought was the first! Being spoken to all day long in a language I didn’t understand... So many seemingly insane things to take on board. But I was alive and fascinated! In love from the start with the people and the most beautiful vistas I have ever laid eyes on (the pink hills...). These people were real tough at first, but any little concession on their part to let me into this secret they seemed to be in posession of, thrilled me. Makes me wanna scream and cry to think of the white people out there hating every day, resenting every second, resenting people for THEIR hardship, not stopping to see the beauty, just waiting for their paycheck so they could say they’d done their year and head back to the sterile comfort of the city. Despite how difficult, how soul-shakingly upsetting it was at times, there was not a second where I didn’t know that underneath it all being THERE was the most amazing something I had ever had the good fortune to find myself doing.

Photography became second nature after a while, after gaining a trust with people in Ernabella. Sittin’ outside our roller door, in a few minutes, we (my partner Duncan and I) would see a million crazy things: a dwarf would drive past on a bulldozer, a woman would throw stones at copulating dogs, gorgeous dusty kids would come and ask us for apples or else stand too shy to say anything staring and giggling at our hair “mangka rupa!”, little boys throwing coke bottles full of sand up slides, young men and women doing laps of town in beat up cars too cool for school, old men drive past in four wheel drives with completely ﬂat tyres and a slain kangaroo in the boot, seventy year old women carrying whole boxes full of chops, coke and white bread on their heads, maybe a kangaroo tail stickin out the top, sad and frightening wraith-like creatues with milk tins containing petrol glued to their faces, ducking round the corner as the white police did their occasional rounds, ancient cowboy law-men inspiring deep awe and giggles at once, dog things resembling hyenas with no hair from mange dragging themselves after people in the vain hope of sustenance... We saw the most beautiful and touching interactions between family and the interactions inherent to people living on the edge of sanity and survival. Once I saw a man go his girlfriend with an axe... other people have seen worse. We were so lucky to be involved in many positive things in our work at the arts centre... jumping in buses and planes and taking kids miles to Canberra to dance at the folk festival, exhibition trips to Adelaide and Alice Springs, being kind of “tour organisers” (!) for the Ernabella choirs historical

trip to the Adelaide Festival. Photos of beauty emerged - youthful fire and gnarled wisdom. The images depicted here are largely of events that inspire hope and good memories for Anangu to look back on, things that seem funny to both Anangu and to Piranpa (whites) once encapsulated in the rectangular world of a photograph. REAL complex, knowing when it was and wasn’t ok to take photos but it fell into place as more and more people from the community would pour into the arts centre to view the latest shots (all digital) on the computer. We developed a collaborative relationship, being asked to take photographs at many different occasions of significance. In this way we were providing Anangu with the technology and expertise to take part in their own media documentation, something they realise is becoming very important in these rapidly changing times. Since coming back to Melbourne (it seemed DEvoid of any colour at all at first), and having an exhibition of photos it became obvious why we’d want to show these images to the outside (the white rim of Australia). I read the paper, watched the news and talked to people with a heightened sensitivity to all things aboriginal and realised that general Australia still sees aboriginal people as something almost ugly and they don’t even want to THINK about them! This came as a shock to me (I’m not from this country originally). Very few people know anything about remote indigenous REALITY whatsoever. I want to expose the beauty I saw. The old women I hung out with, their connectedness to the red dirt and all those different trees and grasses and animals and - oh it sounds so cheesy, but can’t you see the songs they sing in their eyes?

Over the years the media has presented the world with this noble, mysterious image of the African form and culture and eventually many people have accepted it’s beauty and wonder as integral. I wonder if the same could happen in Australia? It seems so superficial that something could change through the changing of an image. Look around - I guess this is a kinda superficial world out here on the rim. I AM SO ANGRY at the government of this country; it’s impossible to write something like this without venting my anger. I’m angry that so few of the relevant politicians even BEGIN to understand ANYTHING of the realities of the legislation they impose on a people they understand less. AHHHH! We spent a year living and working with people and thinking of little else and are still completely perplexed! This old lady very dear to my heart used to say, “get wild for” instead of “get angry at”. Well I feel a wild hurricane in my head when I try to think of the real reasons why the government is doing what it is doing to aboriginal people in the slimy, sinister way it does. Big story. Tjukurpa pulka! Today I went to a “health centre” in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs. I noticed healthy people in the waiting room all around me wearing nice, clean clothes, chatting or politely reading magazines. The contrast to “the clinic” or “kiliniki” in the community where I lived (population around five hundred) is so huge... the clinic was always a desperate scene, hideously overworked, stressed out, under trained (in cultural issues), under staffed in nurses and with only the occasional doctor working through an endless stream of patients (ngaltutjara tjuta - many deserving of sympathy), each with multiple problems, haplessly

slapping band-aids on a wound that it seems will never heal. A wound that manifests in so many horrible ways... I think that type 2 diabetes is the main health problem in Anangu - with adults mainly. Its cause is so blatant in the foods that they eat, there may as well be a conveyor belt from the food store to the clinic. Loaves upon loaves of high GI white bread, litres of Coca-Cola, all kinds of lollies, packets of dry biscuits dipped in billy tea made with cups of sugar for breakfast! Madness to watch for anyone with a vague understanding of the nature of carbohydrates. It would be easy to blame them for their own habits, but when you witness the choices they have in the stores (and for that matter the choices we have in OUR stores)... Choices are there, but expensive and unattractive next to the sugar packaged in a hundred forms, blinking bright colours from every aisle corner. A lack of education is, of course, the other main contributor. There is such a base of knowledge required to understand WHY certain foods are good or bad. People can be told something repeatedly, in any situation, but if they don’t understand WHY, will it ever hit home? That base information in this scenario is stuff that many of us grow up with inherently; we don’t even have to try and learn it, for it is within our cultural knowledge already. That sweet, sweet sugar has become the devil in my mind! It makes sense when you see the gleeful honey-lust of the women digging great pits in the earth in search of tjala (honey ants)...

Only eighty years ago this one luscious, sticky treat was a delicacy sipped on by children who stored and carried it for days on their heads, the honey soaked in a special grass. Now they buy Nutella by the jar for afternoon tea. In Ernabella it comes sold with a spoon. There are currently no dialysis units in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara lands, nor plans or funds for their installation. The many people who have progressed to that stage of diabetes are forced to reside in Alice Springs (ﬁve hundred kilometres away) so they can have their blood cleansed three or four times weekly. They risk their lives to attend important cultural events back on the lands. They are homesick all the time. Ngaltutjara.

My friends, the women who work in the arts centre, have THE most amazing ability to laugh at life, despite the daily hardships they face. INCREDIBLE to hear the sweet cackles echoing through the work room in the mornings. As I gained an understanding of the language, Pitjantjatjara, and realised the kinds of things the women were laughing about, those barriers of fear and distance were destroyed. Little things! I remember them all cracking up for hours relaying the story of when Nungalka went on a plane to Edinburgh and they got her pet dog Whitey on the phone to her and he wouldn’t stop howling at the sound of her voice! It is such a very simple concept, that laughter crosses all cultural boundaries, but one that gave me no end of joy! It was a like a relief... Sometimes I would see things happen that were so far outside the realms of what I culturally believe to be NORMAL or GOOD, things that took crazy energy to understand. But when we laughed, all melted and we were one people! After getting over the fact we had funny hair and didn’t always wear shoes like most of the good Christian whitefellas who had been friends to Anangu in the past, Duncan and I really developed this whole humour with the women all of our own. I think they could see that we didn’t always do things the proper whitefella way, but that it wasn’t because we were bad, only different. I THINK they identiﬁed. Together in the city we were like a bunch of giggling school children! As a pastime and extra money spinner (using skills developed over thousands of years) the women make beautiful baskets out of native grass (tjanpi). Once, we were in the carpark of the National Museum

of Canberra after a dance performance. Daisy (a nationally renowned batik artist since the 1970’s) spotted some long native grasses, obviously specially planted there as part of a native landscape garden. “Beth! Nyawa! Tjanpi wiru ngangatja!” (“Beth look over there at that good grass”) she said with that glint in her eye. We knew what they were thinking. I said if anyone stopped us that I would argue the womens’ case that they had slightly more right to that grass than anyone else did! So we commando mission-ed it with the speed of sixty year old diabetics and gathered the bounty like we were free under the desert sun. The younger women hid their heads in shame and in ﬁts of laughter! I hope you can see the collective strength in the eyes of these images. Far away from that raging chaos and the desert’s gentle sunset light, those eyes give me hope and inspiration to return. There needs to be an ENORMOUS shift in the mind of Australia to urge the government to get serious about indigenous health and standards of living. To go about it in appropriate ways, to give real strength, knowledge and training to people who can manage their own communities. To place indigenous needs over the needs of mining companies and beaurocratic ease. To continue to expose the shame of what has happened in the past and try to heal that. Will Australia continue to avoid this incredible cultural entity in order to avoid it’s guilt?

Please have respect for these images. We have been granted special permission to use them however taken out of the context of this article that no longer applies. WANTI! (leave it!) - beth

The Future Cities Project Blink. Blink again. The world changes. The future approaches. What are you up to next week? What will your life look like in a year’s time? How about 50? The Future Cities Project is an exercise in intelligent dreaming. Scientiﬁc opinion ﬂirts with imagination and speculation to create a series of startling visions and intriguing possible future worlds. Each year at our Future Cities Forum at the Melbourne Museum, leading environmental thinkers and futurists come together with writers and illustrators to play and to dream.

They will teach you about the taste of an apple in 2055. They will pluck you out of peak-hour traffic and lead you fruit-picking down a tree-lined alleyway in inner-city Melbourne. You will earn a living mining metal from junked-up cars. They will help you pack up your beautiful coastal home and flee inland as the poles melt and the tide rises. The results from these collaborations over the last three years include audio files; transcripts; stories; illustrations; a DVD animation shown at ACMI and on the large screen at Federation Square and a large-scale sculptural installation that will soon be available on the Future Cities Project startingly beautiful, interactive website: www.slf.org.au/futurecities The Sustainable Living Foundation invites you to step into the future and join us in imagining an environmentally sustainable city 50 years from now....

Nepabunna to Adelaide Joel Catchlove 25 July, 2004

I wake up three times during the day, and each time I get a strange kind of culture shock as we slip closer to urban life. Every time I open my eyes, the marks of white Australia increasingly attempt to contain and control and deďŹ ne this space according to its own alien geometries. It suddenly seems so pathetic, our insistence on wedging our scraps of ďŹ&#x201A;ags onto new lands as if we could own them. National colours suddenly casting a microscopic shadow over the vastness of these landforms which have formed the essence of cultural and spiritual existence for tens of thousands of years, dividing it up with wood and wire and attempting to reshape and contain these great mysteries of stone and earth in words we understand.

The pathless scrub of the Ranges is softened into fields, sprinkled with the crumbling stone squares of forgotten “pioneers” and colonial chimneys and the splintered hills beyond, while falling into shadow, remain. The paddocks take on an artificial neon green, chewed by sheep and violent against the ochres and soft grey-green of the bushland beyond. The brown square signs of Historic Sites spring up with greater frequency, in all their reflective glory, marking in their clean uniform typeface bridges and train tracks which have been marking the landscape for a whole one-hundredand-fifty years. And alongside them, small hand-painted squares on the hillsides reminding us that thereʼs no camping...

We stop at Port WakeďŹ eld. Lone young eucalypts concreted into the gravel shoulder of the highway shiver in the yellow neon of the petrol station, rattling dryly in the passing thunder of a road train. Then the bleak rainbow of exploding pristine night time roadhouses gives way to the glowing plastic globes of hamburger joints and beer billboards. Even Roxby Downs, despite the globalised absurdity of its mown grass and shopping mall chain stores, was somehow softened by the knowledge that it was surrounded by hundreds of kilometres of red sand.

Finally we stand, feeling a little lost in a carpark in the South of the city. Dark puddles shimmer and catch the occasional light of a broken street light and we look up through dark hotel balconies and silent Sunday-night ofﬁce windows and the sky is starless again, black-orange with the lights of the city losing themselves in the clouds. Its vastness reshaped by the edges of billboards and ofﬁce blocks.

“Itʼs ok,” says Katherine, “I think we can carry the desert with us, yʼknow. I think we can. I think I heard a bowerbird before, so itʼs ok.”

“God is awesome.” pronounced the street preacher through his mobile P.A. system A suburban witch wanders past wearing a knitted pentagram jumper. Datafeed on the screen above says “Hicks trial will be unfair/Bush hits campaign trail under ﬁre.” A white busker plays didgeridoo further down the mall, it echoes against the hollow mountains of commerce toward us. He continues: “Religious leaders of that time put down Jesus because he challenged them! His ideas were revolutionary then, and they still are today!” <Be Here Now> beams the advertising slogan for mobile phones on the passing tram. “To get to heaven we must know God.” The crowd waiting for their tram half listens, bemused, intrigued, annoyed… I get the urge to go to my knees in front of him, praying in theatrical farce…. He continues: “What’s wrong with Buddhism? There is only one God! Only one Jesus!” The Nike palace dwarfs us with its logo and the huge anonymous face of a model and her cheekbones. She is Big Sister watching you…

by tim_parish

He continues: “Some people think we’re all brainwashed! As a Christian, yes! I’m brainwashed into believing Jesus is the way! An atheist is brainwashed too. An agnostic is brainwashed into spiritual apathy..” Now my imagination is bowing, kissing the ground in front of him, speaking in tongues, inspired by his sermon… He continues: “If you went to the desert for five years too, you wouldn’t be able to ignore how wrong this world is!” An hindu family passes with bags from Myer. Pidgeons eat the crumbs of pastry at my feet. Australian flags wave to us in the wind which blows through the valley of glass and steel, sweeping leaves fallen under autumns spell.. He continues: “When you die, all God wants to know is: did you believe?” A young man with an afro and small glasses passing asks: “What does God think of Muslims?” “He loves them very much.” Replies the preacher. Another passerby, chinese in blue I.T. uniform and mirrored sunglasses yells ‘Sataaan!!!” holding up his index and little fingers in the air.. I wonder if knows this is the sign of Pan? Coopted by a church needing a devil. He continues: “This book is irrefutable!”

The big television above us is selling us televisions now. It say’s ‘Life is Good.’ I feel better knowing that. He continues: “The Anti-Christ will place his mark on every person, and you will not be able to buy or sell anything without that mark.” He is talking about barcodes now.. I wonder if he’s heard of the new biometric passports the US government is bringing in to increase security. Control. He continues: “The Beast will be a computer chip in your body!” The people at the tram stop are texting each other, talking on their phones to people anywhere but here. Animals walk past on the screen for an RSPCA advert. He continues: “Jesus is not a swear word.” The Body Shop promotes Hemp Oil behind him, I read that they copped a lot of ﬂack for promoting drugs in the media… He continues: “You go to a newsagency today and you can ﬁnd magazines on witchcraft! On Paganism! It is beginning to be accepted! But it is celebrating the creation, rather than the creator! It’s like science…”

Anti-war activists have a stall close by, they are signing petitions against the occupation, but we all voted with our feet before the war. I wonder what difference more signatures will make? He continues: “I studied physics a few years ago, and the more we know about quantum mechanics, the less we know about what is truly going on. There universes of complexity beyond what we can see.” Teenage punks with skateboards and spiky hair smoke cheap cigarettes, and laugh, but they are listening. He continues: “God said homosexuality is a sin. If you want to argue with that, I don’t care, because I am at peace with the truth.. Doctors say nothing is wrong with homosexuality, but there is something wrong with deformities. Does that make it right? God made a natural order of things, it must be obeyed..” A middle aged white man walks forward from the loitering crowd to shake his hand. “Good Work Son.” Then leaves with his Philipino wife. On the screen I see the text: <Weather Proudly Sponsored By> He continues: “It’s not about joining a church people! It is just about believing in Jesus Christ! He becomes your friend! He becomes your friend!”

A feral babe with piercings and a taoist tattoo is reading a book on magical realism. Two drunks, UDL’s in hand, amble towards the pulpit, at first they seem angry, but rest silently bemused on the steps next to him, entertained. He continues: “Right now, millions of Africans have heard the word and joined the Church of Jesus Christ… The same thing has happened in China.” Police cruise past slowly likes sharks, surveying the scene. He continues: “We’re good at building empires, but the kingdom of God will never change.” Behind me a steady stream of people have been peering into windows filled with gold and diamonds. They stare transfixed at tiny symbols of wealth, what do they see in them that I cannot I wonder? He continues: “There’s no cancer in heaven! No war in heaven! No psychiatric problems in heaven!” A Polynesian girl walking unimpressed with his description asks: “What about the good things in heaven?” “Is there whiskey in heaven?” asks the drunks.

A hippy guy with a colourful scarf jumps onto the platform behind and dances like a fruit loop before skipping joyously away.. He continues, oblivious: “You’re not going to get born again by going to yoga, or learning meditation. There is only one way to receive enlightenment.” The tram arrives, people inside look out like alien tourists. He continues as I leave:

“God is an awesome God!”

In April of this autumn just gone, four friends went on a journey. We became pilgrims; walking for three weeks, all the way along the river in Melbourne where we were born and have always lived. We followed the length of the Yarra, following the bends of what once was known as Birrarung, the river of mists, from the sea to the source. It was a timeless, magical journey where I experienced the transformative power of this land that is my home, and as I saw the love people have for it. To make this journey possible required the help and goodwill of hundreds of people; we had to gain permission to pass through private land, and to stay on Parks Victoria land. We stayed on an island, a city farm, and received generously hospitality from many many people, who warmly responded to the story of pilgrimage through their home. We met up with schoolchildren who came and walked with us, mayors of riverside municipalities came and greeted us on the riverbanks, and local natural historians taught us of the ecological gems of the Yarra.

river pilgrims

by maya ward

To walk one’s waterway is an ancient notion in many cultures. Rivers were natural places of pilgrimage where earth energies gathered and ﬂowed along with the water, where there was food and drink, where there was a clear and unmistakable pathway through the land that told of many things. Rivers also play a prominent role in the environmental philosophy of bio-regionalism, which uses the symbol of the river catchment to communicate ecological responsibility (what happens upstream affects those downstream - we are all connected by the river). Bio-regionalism encourages creative exploration of our place, as an effective way to ignite deep, even reverential, knowledge of our natural environment, it’s ecologies, histories and inhabitants. So, a pilgrimage along the Yarra was an idea whose time was ripe.

A local historian, Mick Woiwod, says that the last time such a walk along the Yarra was done may have been by the Wurundjeri, the Aboriginal people of this place. The Yarra is known to be a ‘songline’, a path through the landscape thousands of years in age, that was ‘mapped’, culturally communicated and celebrated, through song. Our travelling this route for the ﬁrst time in well over a hundred years was for us a gesture of reconciliation and respect for the Wurudjeri. We wanted to honour the ways this land was experienced by the ﬁrst peoples, who were deeply at home in this place and who had profound understanding of the beings they shared it with. As we left the bay at our launch, a Wurundjeri woman, Tammy Cappochi was there and she asked that the spirits of the ancestors walk with us. This was a precious gift, and so as we walked we held this in mind; as we visited places of massacre and deceit, we apologised, we bore witness.

We had permission to walk all the way along the river, except for one signiﬁcant place. Melbourne Water have responsibility for the area of the Upper Yarra Dam, the main water supply for Melbourne, and although they appreciated the spirit of our pilgrimage, they were concerned not to set a precedent or jeopardize the cleanliness of the water supply. So we did what we swore we would not do, we got in a car and drove around the valley, to access the headwaters from the other side, by going from the top down.

When walking to the source from Mt Baw Baw on the last day of our pilgrimage we had a long way to go. We realised that we did not have time to get to the source we had thought was the longest tributary of the Yarra, but we kept walking until it was the time when we had to turn around in order to get back to camp safely. And at that moment we found ourselves at a logging coup, a huge area of ghastly destruction, still smoking from the burnoff. Yesterday we had been in the ominous smoke of this fire – we were worried about bushfires, yet we never thought for a moment that we would come across logging in the water catchment, freshly destroyed, just as the pilgrims arrive. Oh Melbourne Water, with all your rhetoric about keeping the catchment ‘pure’, not allowing us in, in case we pollute the water supply; here we find the ash that just yesterday was tall mountain forest; here at our ‘source’ we find destruction. Until that moment I had held in my mind the romantic notion of the river path as my whole and beautiful world. Now I was forced to confront a deeper truth, the full complex reality of this time I live within. I think of the log book that we were carrying with us, full of goodwill messages collected from all the people of the river, all wishing us well in finding the source. I think of the love and generosity we encountered all along the journey, from people and from the land, of how our journey enchanted all sorts of people and affirmed how connected we all are. I realize this has given me strength to bare witness to this betrayal of our natural heritage. The time of the pilgrimage, walking all day for three weeks beside a river gave me the lived experience of the sacredness of land. Yet how can people, daily surrounded by the violation of the natural world, in this crazy time, really know, or allow themselves to wonder at another, deeper reality? But the story doesn’t end there. There are countless ‘sources’, many trickles of water running off the mountains combine to make our river. So on our return to camp we visit another ‘source’, this one a perfect ampitheatre of myrtle beech and snow gums, a soft carpet of moss underfoot with a clear stream of sweet water spilling up from the earth. There, at sunset, in that place of exquisite beauty, as we lay exhausted in the gentle moss, the journey was completed; we had walked to the source, we had arrived home, and it was more precious than anything I had known. I am inspired by the potential for an inclusive activism of re-enchantment, an activism of love. One that taps into the ancient stories of this land and makes them live again. We are only beginning the wonderful journey of learning from the land, of finding our way home. May we all travel together.

does the ocean believe us?

City of Angels by Mei Lai Swan

she slips onto the train as it slips out of the station sits down by the door where she canʼt see her reflection in the window opposite “next station siam square” a woman, flared jeans and rampant hair plugged into walkman littering the air with an indecipherable hum gets up, hovers coolly by the door siam, siam is gone remembered only by cats whose tails are mysteriously severed in the back lanes are rabid dogs and indifferent men pushing carts piled high with brooms, buckets, mats, refuse ringing their bells, bored and weary and she wonders if they sweat in the midday heat as they wander in search of a sale if these people are friendly they seldom smile the suit with the phone yells abuse down the line its meaning clear in any language and the woman on the footbridge holds a 7-11 cup for some change her kid curled up at the other end asleep bare from waist up, thighs down seeking escape from the desperation tiny fingers still clutching at plastic cup the streets reek of dog piss and rot and the front page of the paper reveals the discovery of shreds of human flesh in the septic tank of a hotel where a doctor flushed his estranged wife down the toilet, disposing of the evidence downtown is full of trendies wearing practiced expressions of aloofness and ambivalence expressions of their entrance into the modern world where itʼs all shop-and-consume, baby and she wonders how long itʼs been since these video-clip youth abandoned paddy fields to search for a better life in the concrete labyrinth of the city of the angels sheʼs on the midnight train her stop is the end of the line she considers her reflection in the glass of the door waiting for it to slide open even now the streets are alive with people and traffic sleepwalkers and escapees she steps onto the platform and vanishes in the crowd

Monkey Tales: Yellow by Rak Razam

Blue’s heart pounded in time to the 4/4 beat of the drummers, the power strips on her piezio-electrical Monster Bootz smearing like a streak of sheet lightning along the potholed surface of the hill. The Monster Bootz rechannelled the kinetic NRG of the walker to power the hardware of their environmental suits, adjusting temperature and running water pumps that sent moisture and urine back through micro-filters, making it safe to drink. Up above the night sky was lit up in a fiery red blanket by the aurora borealis lightshow, silhouettes of old style satellite dishes, micro-windmills and antennas hanging off the back of yellow frosted solartek’d cars, buses and vans arranged in a tight circle down by Lake Ozora, deep in the Hungarian ravebelt. Rows of golden teepees and dome tents dotted the landscape, cooking smoke rising up in little tufts from the makeshift village below. To the left a dozen Doofers were busy inflating the giant party Dome, swarming around like a hive of phosphorescent bees as the shelter slowly inflated and mushroomed to life, interlocking plates of aerogel honeycombed across it’s golden geodesic surface. Red had told her that clear aerogel was made on the orbiting space stations in zero gravity; the cheaper stuff was made planetside and took on a coloured tint due to impurities in the casting process . Both kinds were only five times as heavy as air, tuffer than kevlar and as malleable as a gel. Protected in the Domez micro-climate, the Trybe was able to party in any weather conditions, and Gaia knows you needed that kinda protection these dayz, what with global warming and the superstorms’n’all...

A group of Reds were sitting in lotus position down on the dusty earth by the bonﬁre, passing the peace pipe around and watching her Yello intensely, nodding at his words. “Brothers and sisters of the Sun, every eleven years when the Red Skies come, we return to our birthing place, where the Trybe roosts. And what a long, strange tryp it’s been, ya? In the old dayz it wasn’t like this much, y’know. Maybe only on week-ends. In some places they didn’t even have outdoor parties. I mean, can you believe it, sayz? I was conceived by doof!” he joked, running a hand across his shaved yello head and grinning broadly. MIX it up, Yello!” she sang out, and everyone laughed, even the Reds. He winked at her and standing there all strong and handsome like, in that moment she knew he was the one.

“Okay. Listen hard, trybe-mates, to the tale of the 100th Monkey. It begins in the primordial times, with Bedlam, with madness and with form. The clan was a large family of musicians and artists, tekmagicians and phreaks who grokked the music and the free party vibe. Then the POLS passed the Criminal Justice Act, this was way back, ya, when they put little laws on things that weren’t theirs to rule. Like putting a law on the sun, or the rain, or the dance.

The Criminal Justice Act gave an excuse for the bully-boyz in blue to attack us Gypsies and travellers, our gatherings, even outlawing “musik wholly or predominantly characterised by a succession of repetitive beats”. He frowned as he concentrated on the lines the Reds had taught him for the commencement ceremony, thrown off by his beautiful Blue rave-mate ﬂirting at him from across the circle, ﬁre light falling across her face. He smiled and continued: “Which is when the Exodus to the Promised Land began. The Bedlam rig mobilized and left England and began to throw open-air teknivals in Europe, spreading the party vibe. And Bedlam begat Okupe in France, who begat Psychiatrik, who begat Lego in Austria, who begat Pong. And Pong, in Germany, begat Kamikazi, in Holland, and Mononom, and back in old England the Spiral Trybe formed. Some of these crews ventured into the Eastern Blok, until the parties crossed the land, strengthening the Trybal bonds.”

Around him the drumming was building into a tattoo, melting into a low bass drone to underscore his speech. “Back then, when they had History, I heard tell of this crew called the Assassins, ya? They founded a network separated by thousands of miles, strategically invulnerable to invasion, connected by the inphomation flow of secret agents, at war with all governments and devoted only to know-ledge. Now we travel Europe like these assassins of old, trading inphomation, putting on parties, living the good life, till the POLS chase us out or we fight ‘em off. Last time the Sun flared up in Her cycle She burned out a lot of the Suit’s satellites and power grids, seriously fucked shit up, ya. But She also powers our Yello tek, which has brought us together to party, to give thanks and to dance. So we’re gonna party hard for Her, ya, give it all we’ve got. This is your season. Mix it up!” he shouted, and a cheer went out from the crowd as they rose to their feet and raced towards the party-Dome. Blue jumped at Yello and wrapped her long legs around his waist, nipped in and brushed her blue lips against his yello skin. “Good Telling, Yello,” she said, raising a finger to the data-bindi on her forehead, indicating she wanted to ‘talk’ to him on their private bandwith. Their ears popped as their i-mode implants phased on with a silent hsss and she kissed him long and hard, minds racing together, melting into the staccoto space between beatz.

<Why do green things reach for the Sun?> she pulsed at him, drowning in the kiss, in the drumming and the red skies and the smell of his sweat and the colour of his eyes, yello, her Yello. <Because She nurtures and destroys> Yello pulsed back. And the Silent Dancing began...

mr history

by jonathon carmichael

4:35 PM the end of slavery is approaching for the day I get in my door about six, that fuck in the apartment next door just gave me that look again. Sit down, contemplate my next move that is obviously related to food. Buy it, cook it, not eat, go to a friend’s house and eat their mother’s cooking. Someone is at the door, I can hear them marauding out the front of my apartment, the door is open, I shout and Mr. History enters. He sits on the couch, reaches in his bag and pulls out his mix bowl, scissors and a bag of Chiba. Well, a three-course meal has arrived for someone. Mr. History always affects me but never really addresses me directly. Chop, chop, chop, burp, chop. I will take this slight interruption and delay to intelligence as an opportunity to recite a parable. Ok, well I live in some shitty part of Melbourne in a three-story apartment block that is always on the verge of collapsing or becoming a public health crisis. The residents all have some kind of ducted heating unit that is linked and does not heat or cool but simply blows, no matter what the temperature. Now we also have a notice board on the bottom ﬂoor for complaints and suggestions, not that there is any serious statement on it just:

FUCK YOU ALL BOB your hair is so shit and you better stop seeing my wife or you are existence zero. Aids is what the Christian refer to as Karma S11-M1 “God came for you, love him and receive eternal life”. Obviously this notice reads something like this after a day, “God came on you, fuck him and receive eternal fellatio”. Anyway there is one complaint that keeps getting posted that reads “Miss Sheffield can you please stop burning your eggs at 6: 45 in the morning, we can all smell it through the air vents”. So, my point is that the smells from one apartment get filtered in to all the other apartments. Chop… chop. So what I am interested in is the fact that Mr. History has been smoking cones in my apartment three times a week and no one complains. I am curious about this. Now to me the smell has become a coat of paint on the walls and it ceases to affect me, but it travels straight into the duct and on into the other apartments. Why does no one complain? Eggs are not contraband. Well I assert that all these old fogies, single mums and hermits enjoy their satanic fix. It serves the purpose of there weekly insurrection, they just have to turn a blind eye and let others do the ‘wrong things’. They enjoy it, knowing that it reflects their wrong doings by not making it a conscious problem. Lying back on the couch reconstructing their own hippie hey day, or dream they are a policeman trying to solve the case of the mysterious drug user in the mist. Mr. History’s hobby is an insightful mystery that allows all the residents in the apartment block to take on another personality. They gain gratification and escape through the dream machine that Mr. History creates/incites. It is their exile from television, where they can rediscover conscious dreaming, travelling through vistas of mystic thought. Explore their internal landscape. Avert their daily suppression. The suppression by things like television, which controlled and dictated their, so called escape. Your Oz is programmed. Multi-national media corporations dictate the light in the box. They only give a shit about getting you to buy shit that you

can’t use, and can’t fit on top of the other shit you don’t use. RECIPE TO ENLIGHTEMENT IN THE MODERN WORLD Chop… chop… the bong is under the tap So this I believe is why the cops are never kicking down my door. Mr. History provides all these people with a chance to remember or construct a life outside the walls that they are so often entrapped in. Even if they have jobs this is a city, a city of walls. Mr. History passes me a bong … and I blow the stagnant smoke straight up into the vent. I did have a television, and I did like to turn it on sometimes. Until some fuck once said, “you know, I can fix the problem with the colour”, and low and behold the revelation arrived…it never worked again. Mr. History asserts that all of reality is a simulation and if he wished he could turn me into a piece of cheese. Obviously it is not that easy I say, or you would never be dry and smoking shit Chiba here 24/7. But rather be doing lines of cocaine in a field with your Playstation 2™ surrounded by naked women. Well, back to my food. I would like to cook something but I have no recipes. I watch people slaving over a meal; sometimes these cooks think they are fucking artists. I wish I were right now, too. Smoke drifts up to the vent. Oh, I lie, I have one recipe that my ex-girlfriend left on the fridge as told me “she was never coming back and I should seek counselling for my unexplainable social psychosis”. The recipe reads:

10 PARTS UN-QUESTIONABLE LOVE AQUIRE A CAT (note: I had a cat once and it just followed me around all day waiting for me to propose to it) A LITLE DRUG USE TO SUPRESS THE EGO RESPECT FOR NATURE SPACE FOR THE SOUL TO DEVELOP FRENDSHIP TO STIMILATE THE INNER BEING BOOKS TO DEVELOP THE INTELLECT EXERCISE GIVING ALL YOU HAVE TO OTHERS (note: how the fuck do I keep or feed my cat if I have to give it away) PLANT A TREE ONCE A YEAR OWN CRYSTALS TO WARD OFF EVIL VIBES ONLY EAT MEAT WHEN YOUR MOTHER COOK’S IT FOR YOU (polite respect, I think) If I could cook this shit I most definitely could not stomach it. Mr. History is so stoned now he is talking to himself as usual. I have noted that the bong is a source of empowerment to a lot of people, not the Chiba but the bong, it is a stand in microphone. The subject just feels that they can fill the room with ‘their’ conversation of the most obscure themes. They just sit there with the bong in one hand, lighter in the other and talk utter shit. This can occur for up to twenty minutes until someone says “shut the fuck up and pull your cone”. Mr. History is doing this right now, but I am used to it. It is what he does. He is “My Television and others fleeting freedom”. Like I said, he never really talks to me but to some hypothetical collective conscience that it appears, he believes, is publishing his every word for Uni students to analyse for it’s ‘obvious’ brilliance.

I have noted that the bong is a source of empowerment to a lot of people...

I’m sure that you have guessed that Mr. History is unemployed. He once had a job packing shelves at Safeway, but they ﬁred him when they found him masturbating in the cold freezer. Why do I put up with him? Well he has never insulted me, never threatened me and he of course provides all the drugs. His pastime is to talk absolute shit, and since I know this, I believe it to be the basis of most friendships. Neither partner understands that they are just both talking shit, but when one does the friendship ends or one partner becomes the others’ subject. Therefore, I do not really believe I have a basis to throw Mr. History out of my life...yet anyway. Oh shit the kettle is boiling over. Mr. History is reading Cosmo out loud.

Mr. History is screaming as he receives techno-erotic pleasure from a Wetware virus. He believes that the virus is planning to propagate his son, to penetrate and crash the Microsoft web page. He will probably take down “Hotmail” while he is there. It is quite obvious to me at this point as I watch my newly acquired television that someone has activated an economically motivated ‘apocalypse media virus’. Cause and effect...I tell you. Int. Melbourne. Three-story apartment block. Day.

Cyber-sex is healthy, and why Look like this Watch this He must do this...or he is out It is normal to gain pleasure from things like that Buy this Apply this twice daily Eat this, not that Spotlight on success

Mr. History looks over at his friend who is eating a Four-and-TwentyPie ™ and starring down at the cars going past on the street below. Then Mr. History slowly tilts his head up and blows smoke up into the vent. Our protagonist look up from the window and turns to Mr. History. Protagonist I imagine there is an UN-‘free’ world somewhere, where people can discuss things freely.

Mr. History is on the Internet now, downloading his consciousness. Then he is uploading his DNA to a representative of the ‘multinational conglomerate of discursive oppression. PTY LTD’, who send him an E-email that reads; FADE TO BLACK You are of no use to us We estimate that you will die of a heart attack at age 49 “Have a nice day”

hey Newstart, thanks for the good times Callum Scott

itʼs not a great main street in fact itʼs awful KFC, Mackers, Safeway, Banks, Smoko Shops, Bakerʼs Delight, Pokie Pubs the usual array of muck. somebody called me a faggot yesterday as I walked down the main street. nobody seemed to mind not even me with my bag slung over my shoulder and a bottle of red in my step. teenagers they were a carload of them in faultless leisure wear fresh from the Centrelink fields of ambition. putting your form in is a full-time job these days ask my mate Johnno weʼre never finished filling in forms queuing for hours and pleading our case.

I thought about getting a job on the main street, maybe in KFC you never know but Iʼd have to walk down the main street every day and breathe in pre-oxidised $2 gifts. I wouldnʼt like that, neither would my mate Johnno we like being on the Sausage ducking and diving, dodging and weaving bit of this, bit of that, bit of the other going to the main street once a fortnight to do our business. if Centrelink had a bar we might come down more often but thatʼs just a pipe dream I have when Iʼm walking down the main street of Werribee.

wind currents An Interview with Peter Adams By Paul I J Oosting

Windgrove at Roaring Beach on the Tasman Peninsula, Tasmania is a powerful, magical place, deeply infused with the sacred. For many Windgrove is a place of refuge, inspiration and dialogue with the earth. Peter Adams is the founder and director of the Windgrove Centre where he has lived and worked for the last twelve years, his work is extensive, as a sculptor, writer and activist.

Can you give me an introduction to what Windgrove is? PA> What have I called Windgrove? I see it as a refuge, in the sense that when people come here they find a place where they can do their work while being nurtured and looked after. They can be re-inspired, find their strength again, find their courage again, to go back out to that other world to carry on with their activist lifestyles. Windgrove is also about using art as a way of showing our human relationship to the rest of the world and show how we are connected to her. We often think of tribalism as just about humans, whereas I can see Windgrove is trying to set up a tribe here as well. It might not just be a group of humans it can be the trees and the air, the water. Itʼs all part of our family and we are all in this tribe together. So, in a way Windgrove is trying to live a life that moves beyond our humanness to connect with the rest, the greater tribe. So what do you see as the importance of tribalism now? PA> The greater sense of tribalism is important because presently our society seems to be fractured with a very low sense of community. Very low. So how do we rebuild communities again so that we can come together to sing, to pray, to grieve, to work together? It is when we are doing that as a group I think we are much happier as individuals and we can support each other. Then when we are having difficulty, you know, you go to the city, you have your big house, then youʼve got your neighbours who are on the other side of a wall, a fence. Is that a real neighbour? I donʼt think so. How have you created such an amazing atmosphere for people to relate to the earth around us here, the air the ocean, the animals, the trees? PA> By immersing myself into this landscape it has to have had an influence upon me, it just does. You cannot help but be here for twelve years and not somehow begin to speak the language of the land and learn in a way to reciprocate with what it is telling you. You just get this nice relationship going. So, different days bring different music, and like yesterday - I hurt myself surfing. I donʼt see it as bad, it is just one of those days, itʼs just what the land had in store for me. So, itʼs not like we can look upon this landscape as benign or innocent, or just lovely, it has itʼs wild side and I think that it is really important that humans get in touch with that wildness within themselves and

within the rest of the world and not try and tame or domesticate it. So, I would much prefer living here than on the other side of the peninsula where there are no waves - it is sort of beautiful, but it is calm. I donʼt want a calm life so I would take my chances that I will survive living here long enough to enjoy the different extremes and that inﬂuences my work. So when I carve, well it is more than just carving. What I am trying to do, the work, you could say itʼs sculpture, you could say it is giving out the Windgrove peace award. It is making benches, it is trying to do activist work in a way I feel I am capable of, like last year doing the parliament house vigil or the Wrest Point Casino protest over Forestry Tasmaniaʼs sponsorship of Ten Days on the Island or the forest rallies. Thatʼs all ʻthe workʼ in a sense. Then how we eat here, allowing David Abram to come here, allowing a drumming workshop to happen here. Involving the local community for pizza nights, music and working on the structures here and at Roaring Beach. It is trying to bring a sense of human tribal-ness back to the land as well as honouring everything that is here and healing it, because this was former sheep country. By planting a tree for every day that Iʼm here, thatʼs another act, another bit of the work Iʼm trying to do.

Tell me about the benches you have sculpted and strategically placed around the area. PA> There were twelve, Iʼm now down to ten because two started to rot, but Iʼll try to keep them up to twelve or fourteen. They act like stations where youʼll walk and come upon a bench, sit down, rest and at the same time meditate on where youʼre at in the landscape and what feelings are coming to you. Just listening to whatʼs out there. Seeing whatʼs there, talking perhaps to a person who might be with you on that little two kilometre journey. So again, it is how I use my art, my skills to create an ambience for dialogue. What I like about the benches is that when you sit on one and someone sits on the same bench you are connecting yourself physically. That makes a connection between two humans, which is why I have chosen benches it helps create dialogue.

How would you like to see Windgrove change, evolve, say 20 years down the track? PA> I would like to see more people be able to experience this. So for me in the next ten years what I hope to have set up is little residency cabins where four people, in different fields can come here and spend a month or two months hanging out. Whether they are a musician or a scientist, a writer, an artist, it doesnʼt matter as along as their professional life is geared towards giving us all a better understanding of the ecology of the earth. So, if I could afford to have them come, house them, feed them, I think that is a proper role for this place. Iʼm supporting the professional side of activism because I think we need those skills, it is not enough just to have good heart. You actually have to have skills that take time to learn, so that we can design eco-friendly buildings, create the legislation of more tolerance, invent the biodegradable plastic bags and we can learn the skills to be good teachers or artists. That takes time, dedication. So I am trying to encourage that here too, when people come. Training. And training doesnʼt necessarily have to connote suffering; it can be a joyous path. Especially when you know what you are learning will help serve humanity and the rest of the world. That is a nice thing. You could be a yoga teacher or a marine biologist, an airline pilot even, you can do things with skill that you might not be able to do if youʼre just young and full of energy. I think if helps change peoples minds if they see you have a certain level of talent, discipline, they will naturally respect that. Also with ego, balance the more aggressive parts of your ego with humility. So that we can use the strength of ego to stand up as an individual against injustices. We might not always have our tribe with us when we make a stand, so that is when ego, a good healthy ego can be helpful. But we can also get judgmental, and that is where in this practice of living respectfully on the earth we have to also deal with those people who might seem to be doing the wrong thing. You still have to show them compassion because if we are all interconnected they are just as much a part of me as I am of them. And that is where forgiveness is an important thing. These are all big tasks and it is not always going to be easy, but it is always worth walking that path toward increasing ones forgiveness, increasing ones compassion, increasing ones love for everything. And that includes horrible politicians - you still have to find some space in your heart for them. And, I think the more one can love you can find that space and still have even more love for those you feel deserve more love.

And, again, that is probably what Windgrove is about, it is to know that your practice is 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You donʼt live the life of an environmentalist or social activist just one day a week. Itʼs not a 9-5 occupation. You have to embody all of those notions that you are trying to teach others, literally walk your talk. I really like it. You become that much more aware of everything that is around you and that is a great thing to happen. Have you taken lessons from living here in Australia and particularly at Roaring Beach from Aboriginal philosophies and understanding of the earth? PA> I canʼt say that Iʼve had direct contact with a lot of Aborigines, but having read about their practices they do have a more intuitive and inner relationship with the land which comes naturally to them, from their own religious practices and cultural practices which we in the west seem to have lost contact with. Looking back 200 years ago is probably when they were evicted from this area. But, before that, man, they were here thousands of years. To be able to sense their presence would be nice. I will look forward to the day when I am so in tune with the land I can pick up their residual energies and be able to decipher them. So I would probably say that I am trying to live a life like indigenous people might live on the land. Not with the sense of using their housing technology for instance, I still have a nice house, with a modern gas stove, a computer and email but I am trying to get more direct contact with what is happening on this particular land, with the ﬂora and fauna. Whether I have enough time, who knows? You still go as far as you can. Is that part of the importance of performing rituals, like how you spend some time each day in the ocean? PA> I gave myself the 3 year, 3 month, 3 day commitment to see what could come of it, what I might learn from it. Because, in a lot of our work, especially environmental work there is a certain discipline required. It is just not always easy. There are those days when sure itʼs sunny, people around and you feel good, the air is pleasant on the skin. Then there are days that are just plain hard, sleet is coming and youʼre lonely and youʼre sick. It is learning to be able to experience all those and at the end still want to continue on, trying to do good for the earth.

How can we take lessons from Windgrove back to the city or suburbia? PA> Again, you have to allow in your life those times where you go out into the wild. It might only be one week out of the year. You give yourself that time to touch base again to become familiar with the real place. So when you are in the city you will have those memories of your time there and through your imagination you can call back up your experiences. You know it is like a lot of religion, people have pilgrimages to their holy shrines and it serves a purpose, they get back in touch with their god or gods again. So, I see wild nature as a sacred temple. Humans have to almost crawl on their knees through it, prostrate themselves to the trees and the other animals to humble themselves and out of that they can then go back to the cities, healed as well as inspired and encouraged to do the work necessary. How do you think a dialogue with the earth will impact upon the human ecology? PA> To me, it can only help. If you can feel comfortable walking in the forest and communicate and feel, then you can communicate and listen to the animals and learn respect and then you can carry that forth to your human relationships. So if you walk through the city with respect for others and humility and compassion, that will help cities stay functional and also joyful. Itʼs not like you have to walk around feeling you know, respectful but sad, you can still be respectful and glad. Celebration. Celebration with respect for yourself, and others you donʼt abuse. Donʼt abuse what is here on this earth. Iʼm not saying abstain, donʼt abuse whatʼs here on this earth just use it with consideration. Just knowing, just use thing to make yourself aware. To be in the right relationship, thatʼs a Buddhist concept: right livelihood, right relationship.

For more information on Windgrove visit: www.windgrove.com Peterʼs blog can be viewed at: http://www.cobbers.com/pa/ Photos courtesy of Peter Adams.

Listen by Cassie Tongue

point-click type here, press the ʻenterʼ key so loudly i can barely hear the voices screaming into mobile phones (no one cares that dinnerʼs at seven sharp and that heʼs late again, that cad) and i just want to scream rip the phone from your ear and throw it into an espresso machine. static hums and confettis the air and i think iʼm forgetting how to talk to someone face-to-face and even when i pull you away to a silent place and look in your eyes i still hear the street and its pitched, cellular shrillness and i know the roast is getting cold.

tim parish

she told me: â&#x20AC;&#x153;hes over itâ&#x20AC;? but what? art? the street? beauty? free space? i dont believe it. we go through dream, wakinglife, memory, inspiration... maybe today he just wanted to read. yesterday the world drank my ideas. tomorrow, who knows?

if i was a leaf falling, i would land upon lovers kissing. or sail upon the currencies of windspirit and see the landscape from the neighbourhood of birds. i would ride soundscapes, and whisper autumns secrets to the ground.

Deep within the parkland borders we ďŹ nd a waterfall of naked playgrounds where laughter conspires with young free radicals in love with her surrounds. Wild animals aware of their domestication shed cloths of shield every chance they get like wild escapees from civilisation. Eco-tourists from suburbia intent on family rated sightseeing approach shocked and embaressed by the sight, shielding their children from the honesty of ďŹ&#x201A;esh, breast and pubic hair.

Later on they will complain to the park ranger who will take down the details diligently and then throw them away, secretly wishing he could join them as he sweats in khaki uniform. tim parish

Monkey Tales: Blue Rak Razam

It was a kiss that could have gone on forever, if not for the voices in their heads calling them to dance. Blue took a deep breath of cold air, tiny white flecks of snow falling like aerie lights against the red aurora night. She raised her face and opened her mouth, tried to catch the flakes on her tongue before remembering it was acid snow, fallout from the old dayz, back at the end of History. <C’mon, Blue> Yello pulsed on their mental intranet, his thoughts transmitted by the data- bindis on their foreheads. His breath was warm on her skin and the smell of him was so close she wanted to take him there, in the fire-circle, bump ‘n’ grind and beast with two backs, and he knew it. <I want you too, Blue, but it’s time, we can’t put it off any longer> he pulsed across their link, breaking their embrace. <It’s our party-season Yello and we can do whatever we want> she snapped back, hugging herself against the cold. <No. Now we have to dance> Yello pulsed. They all did. Those who didn’t partake had no place in the Trybe. Like her mother, a Blue dancer before her. She’d had her season, danced her dance and then left the Trybe, why, Blue never knew. She couldn’t imagine life outside the Trybe, back in what was left of the world - it scared her, that big unknown. They had all they needed here, the land beneath them and the sky above, and the stars... What if she danced and had her season, then wanted to leave as well? What then? she panicked. Blue looked deep into Yello’s eyes and he into hers, and they both took strength from what they found there.

<You’re not her, Blue. You won’t make the same mistakes. Just listen with your heart, okay? Dance like no one’s watching.> <Okay> she smiled, and ran her blue hand across his yello face. <And Yello? Thanks for being you, ya? And for letting me be me>

Switching to HIVE mode they could ‘hear’ the others in their heads, louder now, the Vibe coming together like a digital spiderweb through their network. They lowered their TRYPR Full Spectrum filtered goggles and could see x-rays and gamma ray bursts flashing across the inverted sky, penetrating their bodies in a cosmic wave passing through the earth. Yello took her hand and lead her to the Dome, entering through the side flap. A wave of heat and sweat and tingling expectation coursed over them as they watched their Trybe-mates settling into the groove, infra-red heat patterns radiating from their bodies in coloured blobs. They were Silent Dancing under the Dome, red sky and stars and snow visible through it’s yellow transparent skin. Under their feet, piezio-electric sensors threaded through the pancake thin aerogel floor. They looked like giant, electronic lily pads, lighting up red and yellow and blue and green as they absorbed the stomping,

kinetic energy of the dancers and pumped it out to the GNR8Rs for storage on cloudy days, when the solar output was low. Feedback loops, juz like in nature, conserved all energy. A good dance and they could sell some juice back into the GRID, trade it for some new tek or power the Trybe for another month, if the storms kept up.

<Welcome Blue, welcome Yello> the voices pulsed as one, and Blue was sure she could ‘hear’ old Red amongst them, his presence an anchor in the Mix. She scanned the Dome and spotted him grooving near the centre of the dancefloor, shaking his butt, tribal tattoos snaking across his red body, dredds whipping around with a life of their own. <Synaesthesia Neural MyxR loading now...> the voices said, a feather light tickle from their i-mode implants as the partyware kicked in. The Neural MyxR converted light into sound, rewired the sensory input and spliced it together into something danceable. Filtered through their TRYPR goggles, the Trybe hooked up to the x-ray flux oscillation of the stars and converted it into low hertz sound waves. Light became sound became light, from their tops to their toes, a celestial throb channelled through them to the earth and back. <Blue, can you hear it?> <Stomach punching bass, blue light rhythm...> A low, rumbling hum rang out as the stars pumped out sound, mixing with data strands from other parts of the solar spectrum, gamma jazz riffs over a low and funky neutrino bass. Blue could feel it echoing in the hollow of her chest and filling the empty spaces within her, linking her to the rest of the Trybe and to the stars above.

She began to dance. The leyline Red had dowsed felt like an electric pulse under her feet, connecting them to the other Trybes in the Gaia N’Aton across the planet, all on the same frequency and mixed into the group mind. The dancers dancing and dancing and dancing...like a hundred monkeys stringing their way across a barrel. Like geese in a ﬂock, all keeping the formation, led by something greater than the parts. She had to remember how to move it, to shake it, to feel the energy snaking up her spine and turn herself on. It wasn’t hard at all, really. Just shut your eyes and dance like there’s no one watching, Red always said. She meditated on her base chakra, then her navel chakra, then brought her focus and energy up to her solar plexus chakra, picturing golden light spilling from her energy centre, hearing it as tinkling notes, a musical ﬁre that pushed out towards the Sun. It formed a solar umbilical cord connecting her with the Sun and through it, the galactic kore, that dark rift at the centre of the Milky Way the Trybe revered as the ‘Womb of the Great Mother’. It was pulsing like a whale song, long and low and beautiful as the Trybe tuned in their chakra points and the air resonanted with kundalini sparks. And the universe stopped becoming matter and became light, which became sound, which became dance.

And all was love... Outside the Dome the snow was coming down hard now, electricity crackling and high winds scouring the ground. From the corner of her eye Blue caught sight of Redâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s key-like sigil on the hill. It jolted her and imprinted on the group mind in the dance and relayed out across the stars. And then she was lost in musik, drowning in it, dancing across the ďŹ&#x201A;oor and wrapped in light and sound, shaking it for Shiva and for Shakti as the Trybe melted together, smearing like an x-ray through the storm. And she knew:

undergrowth / issue ﬁve / human ecology / editorial collective / editorial@undergrowth.org/ rak razam / tim parish /art director / tim parish / art@undergrowth.org /proofreader / whowillclaimresponsibility?com /website / pierce jacques/ webhed@undergrowth.org/ Nic Low/ nic@dislocated.org/ kath oʼdonnell / aliaK@bigfoot.com //contributing writers // tim parish, rak razam,/olivia mei lai swan = meilai@wildmail.com / Bob Nekrasov = bobnekrasov@hotmail.com / denis kevans = 63 Valley Rd, Wentworth Falls NSW 2782 / joel catchlove = madhorsemanofmarrakesh@yahoo.com / Cassie Tongue = velvetandlace@gmail.com / paul_XXX = dumpsterdiverextrordinaire@hotmail.com / beth sometimes = misssometimes@gmail .com / stephen mushi = stephenmushin@yahoo.co.nz / maya ward = mayaward@yahoo.com.au / jonathon carmichael = gnostictripper@hotmail.com / callum scott = c.scott4@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au / paul i.j. oosting = pauloosting@hotmail.com //artist credits// cover/ cracks in the system/ Tim Parish/ art@undergrowth.org pgs 2 - 5> mannequin photo essay/ Ollie Dunlop/ oli42@hotmail.com pgs 6 - 7> bus stop/ Tim Parish/ art@undergrowth.org pg 9> cloudburst/ Ben Mastwyk / pg 10> platform 10/ Rak Razam/ shazaman@netspace.net.au pg 11, 36 - 37, 74 - 75, 98 - 99, > spirits/ Tim Parish/ art@undergrowth.org> pgs 12 - 13> babylon street/ Tim - green elder/ Ben Mastwyk pgs 14 - 16> Hunab Ku: red/ red sigil/ Alex Courtney/ info@theshapeshifter.com pgs 18 - 19> red monkeys/ Rak Razam/ shazaman@netspace.net.au

pg 20> sepia games/ James Riches/ jriches1@optusnet.com.au pg 21> lovers/ Oliver Dunlop/ oli42@hotmail.com pg 22> clouds/ Oliver Dunlop/ oli42@hotmail.com pg 26> goulburn totem/ Rak Razam/ shazaman@netspace.net.au pg 28> bush ﬂowers/ Tim Parish/ art@undergrowth.org pg 29> forest folk/ James Riches/ jriches1@optusnet.com.au pg 30> emotional wreck/ Oliver Dunlop/ oli42@hotmail.com pg 31> rusted/ Rak Razam/ shazaman@netspace.net.au pg 32 - 33, 35>swamp series/ Bronwyn Wright/ Brownwyn.Wrights@cdu.edu.au/ <www.redeyemedia.com.au/theswamp/index.htm> From the exhibition ʻSuburban Edgeʼ pg 38 - 43> dumpster nation/ Tim Parish/ art@undergrowth.org pg 44 - 53> pukatja story pics/ Beth Sometimes/ misssometimes@gmail.com pg 54 - 55> future cities/ James Riches/ jriches1@optusnet.com.au pg 56 - 59> paddocks of dreams/ Tim Parish/ art@undergrowth.org pg 60 - 63> some villains/ Rachel Peachey and Paul Mossig/ somevillains@octapod.org pg 64> jesus is an awesome god/ Oliver Dunlop/ oli42@hotmail.com pg 65 - 69> love_bombs/ graf notes/ tram nomads/ Tim Parish/ art@undergrowth.org pg 73> dive/ Oliver Dunlop/ oli42@hotmail.com pg 76 - 81> tipi village/ Boom festival dome/ yellow dome and dancers/ André Ismael& Lisa/ info@zuvuya.net pg 82 - 83> four portraits/ feral/ Tim Parish/ art@undergrowth.org/ suit and tie/ Oliver Dunlop/ oli42@hotmail.com/ pikatja story pic/ Beth Sometimes/ misssometimes@hotmail.com /refugee face/ Tim Parish/ art@undergrowth.org/ pg 84 - 89> mr history @work/ ganja head/ blue branching/ Oliver Dunlop/ oli42@hotmail.com pg 90> starting young/ Rak Razam/ shazaman@netspace.net.au pg 93 - 97> Windgrove photos/ Peter Adams/ peter@windgrove.com pg 100 - 101> faith/ blue monkeys/ Oliver Dunlop/ ollie42@hotmail.com pg 102> blue dancer/ André Ismael& Lisa/ info@zuvuya.net <http://www.zuvuya.net> pg 103> blue digital avatar/ Alex Courtney/ info@theshapeshifter.com pg 104 - 105> blue doof/ Rak Razam/ shazaman@netspace.net.au pg 106 - 107> Hunab Ku: Blue/ Alex Courtney/ info@theshapeshifter.com pg 108 - 109> home/ Tim Parish/ art@undergrowth.org/