The Power of We: Rallying to the Cause

The topic for Blog Action Day this year could suggest global and regional events such as the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement. Inspiring and dramatic as those are, my concerns are closer to home — though with wide relevance. I certainly hope that community action is powerful!

I think Coal Seam Gas fracking is the most important issue facing Australia at present. I know it is of concern in other countries too. Rural Australia feels so strongly against this practice which is so dangerous to our land and water that an organisation called Lock the Gate Alliance Inc. has been formed and has gained widespread support around the nation. The name refers to the fact that mining companies have had the right to come onto people's properties, explore, and sink wells without having to gain the owners' permission — as detailed in this 60 Minutes report. 

Fracking has already been happening all over the country, notably in the Darling Downs in Queensland, one of our largest agricultural areas. To quote one source: 'The farms of the Darling Downs grow the grain that feeds most of the beef, pigs and chicken (including for eggs and dairy products) that we buy in supermarkets. “If you eat pork or beef or eggs you can almost guarantee it’s been fed on grain from the Darling Downs.” '  The implications are that if this food supply is irretrievably contaminated, we might have to start importing our food from overseas!  Once the land has been ruined by this practice, it stays ruined. The Springbok Aquifer in the Western Darling Downs has already been accidentally polluted by the miners drilling too close.

There has been such an outcry from the people that our State and Federal Governments have had to take some notice. There have been moratoriums on fracking pending further investigations. However the State of New South Wales, where I live, has now lifted the ban in this State and renewed 22 coal seam gas exploration licences. One of the areas under threat is the beautiful Northern Rivers where I live.

Two days ago I took part in a big anti-CSG rally in my home town of Murwillumbah. The picture below, from a brochure, depicts a similar event. Check the Murwillumbah.com.au article for excellent coverage of Saturday's rally, including DVDs.

People also came from surrounding areas, and the march was estimated at between 3,000 and 4,000 people. Many passing motorists honked, cheered and waved in support. News cameras were there, and I thought we made a colourful display with our banners and placards. It was a warm day in Murwillumbah; most wore dark glasses and sun hats, or carried umbrellas used as sunshades. I stupidly left my hat at home but luckily had a brolly in the car. Later I wished I'd written some slogans down its red and white panels. Many people, as requested by the organisers, wore yellow, the colour of the Lock the Gate signs. (The one above is from the afore-mentioned brochure, but you get the idea.)

We wanted to send a message to the politicians via the media. However, on TV that night the event, together with a 1,000-strong rally in Sydney, rated barely two minutes of coverage. (City people tend to be much less aware of the dangers, so that wasn't a bad turn-out for Sydney, I thought.) Our local Daily News gave it quite a good write-up though, with great photos and DVD.

Even here, there are people who don't get it. When I asked, at my writers' group (in a different but nearby town) on Friday,' Who's going to the rally?' they looked at me blankly. When I explained, several people voiced the feeling that activism does no good; things don't change. Perhaps they were too young to remember the anti-Vietnam war moratoriums. No doubt they had forgotten the history of the Suffragette movement in England or the de-segregation marches in the USA. Not to mention the role of Gandhi and his followers in freeing India from British rule.

People in my birth State, Tasmania, succeeded in stopping a pulp mill which was to be built on the banks of the river Tamar, where I grew up. The resulting pollution would have devastated the river itself and the river valleys. After five years of active, vocal and highly organised opposition from concerned citizens, the company that wanted to build the mill went broke. TAP (Tasmanians Against the Pulp Mill) succeeded in causing delays by legal means, and discouraging proposed financial partners by acquainting them with the level of community opposition. Activism can work — and sometimes we have to persevere. 

One woman assured me that where she lives, in a pretty valley outside Murwillumbah, it's a CSG-free zone. 'Everyone's got the "Lock the Gate" signs up,' she said. 'And the gates are locked.' She also said she never watches the news — which may be why she imagines that those measures are enough. The people who have those signs up are not so sanguine. They say they'll also block the gate if necessary — and they expect it will be necessary.

  

I was well taught by an extraordinary father that if you want people to stand up and be counted, the only person you have control over is yourself — YOU have to stand up. 'If everyone did that, and no-one waited for anyone else to be first,' he said, 'You'd have a movement. At the very least, you'd have a clear conscience.' (Or words to that effect.) Well, we had and have a movement, and it is important to make the politicians listen to the people. Perhaps my next step is to write to the TV channels and tell them how disappointed I was at the brief coverage. I know one thing: activism might not achieve the desired goal, but inactivity certainly won't. Giving up in defeat is guaranteed to permit or perpetuate the things we don't desire.

Not everyone can march — the sick, the elderly, those too far away from the rallying points.  But there are other avenues. We can sign petitions, we can write to our Members of Parliament, we can lobby our local councils, we can send letters to the editors of newspapers.

We may well need further initiatives to stop Coal Seam Gas mining in this part of the world. OK, if thats what it takes — it's worth it.

#BAD (Blog Action Day)

Blog Action Day rolls around again on October 16th, which is also World Food Day, so the topic of course is FOOD. I have registered this blog and also my poetry blog The Passionate Crone.  I hope to persuade the other members of WordsFlow to be in it too.

In case anyone hasn't caught up with Blog Action Day in the past, it's one day a year when bloggers all around the globe focus on one topic that we feel needs attention called to it. In the past the topic has been chosen by vote; this year, because of the coincidence of the date, it's already decided.

How one treats the topic is up to the individual blogger. How I'm going to approach it, I don't yet know, but I'm going to have fun thinking about it.

I know that whenever I give 'food' or 'eating' as topics in writing workshops, they're very inspirational! Food is primal, basic to our survival and therefore a great source of pleasure. Hunger is painful. Starvation is fatal. There are people in the world experiencing hunger and even famine right now. Oh yes, there's lots to write about!

Climate Change

Is it real or isn’t it? 

We are certainly seeing a lot of extreme weather all over the world in recent years, and it does seem to be getting worse. Tsunamis, dust storms, floods, earthquakes, tropical cyclones, droughts….

But hang on – hasn’t the earth always experienced these conditions? There have been some huge climatic changes in the past. It wasn’t human polluters who caused the Ice Age, for instance. There’s a theory that our earliest agrarian ancestors may actually have helped delay the onset of another ice age a few thousand years ago. Read all about it in Wikipedia.

Um, hang on again. If that is so, it does make sense to think we may have gone too far in that direction by now. It’s not all bad: we didn’t really want another ice age, did we? Maybe the planet needs that balance, but it wouldn’t be very good for us human beings. On the other hand, we don’t really want to be inundated by rising seas either. The inhabitants of small Pacific islands particularly don’t want to be!

But is it all a myth?  I have a friend who believes that it is a lie. He says 1998 was the hottest year on record, so clearly the earth has been cooling down, not warming up, in the last decade. (I must say, in terms of planetary time, that doesn’t seem very long actually.) He bases his opinion on this story. Not actually conclusive as far as I can see.

He also thinks it’s a ploy to institute “a global tax (Cap and Trade)  to pay for a New World Order, or One World Government whichever the turnout if we allow it to happen.”  He’s by no means alone in that view!

Another friend counters:

Here's a condensed version of an article just published.  No politics. Just thought it was interesting.

Global Warming Could Cool N. America
Kate Ravilious, National Geographic
September 16, 2009 06:16 AM

Global warming could actually chill down North America within just a few decades, according to a new study that says a sudden cooling event gripped the region about 8,300 years ago. Analysis of ancient moss from Newfoundland, Canada, links an injection of freshwater from a burst glacial lake to a rapid drop in air temperatures by a few degrees Celsius along North America's East Coast.
This event created a colder year-round climate with a much shorter growing season for about 150 years, from northern Canada to what is now Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. The results suggest that North America's climate is highly sensitive to meltwater flowing into the ocean, said lead study author Tim Daley of Swansea University in the U.K. The work also means that history could repeat itself: Currently Greenland's ice sheet is melting at a rapid clip, releasing freshwater into the North Atlantic. 
Article continues


And where do I stand? I think climate change is real, that we have contributed to it, and we’d better find a solution very, very soon. The earth will survive all right; it’s likely we won’t. That’s why I’m participating in Blog Action Day. Anything that might conceivably help….

BLOG ACTION DAY: What Is Poverty? (Examining my life.)

For one thing, it’s relative.

I have a roof over my head and enough clothes to wear. I eat three meals a day and sleep in a comfortable bed at night. Compared with millions of other people in the world, I’m rich. When I add that I’m surrounded by shelves of books, have paintings on my walls, and that our household maintains two cats, two computers and one car as well as two people – surely, by some standards, I live in luxury!

Measured by other criteria, too, I’m positively wealthy. I’m married to a man I love, who loves me. My children are all living healthy and productive lives doing the work of their choice. Most of them are in happy relationships with people they love, and all of them have good friends and enough money. I myself have an abundance of wonderful friends, and I live in one of the most beautiful regions in Australia. My health is good. I earn money only in occupations I truly enjoy. So what would I know of poverty?

As I said, it’s relative. When I was a University student in my twenties, existing on a Commonwealth Scholarship and sharing a house in a low-rent area with a couple of other young women, there were times I lived on sixpence-worth of mincemeat and one lettuce per week, and I shared the mincemeat with my cat. Well yes, sixpence did buy a lot more than it does now! In fact we’ve had decimal currency for a long time; it was equivalent to five cents. And that was long before I found out that iceberg lettuce has no real nutrition. I thought I was taking care of my health by eating protein plus a green leafy vegetable. A friend used to give me oranges, and various friends used to sometimes invite me for meals. At the end of one year I pawned most of my textbooks and was never able to redeem them. I still regret letting go of the beautiful Lavengro by George Borrow, a book that’s not heard of any more.

I was poor enough to steal. (Not that that’s an excuse, but it says a lot about my circumstances, not to mention my character.) That was in the days of milk deliveries. I used to go around the back lanes with one of the girls I shared the house with, and nick bottles of milk sitting on doorsteps. If there were two or more bottles, we would take one, and that lasted us a few days. Then we’d pick a different doorstep next time.

Where were my parents, you ask? In different cities far away. My Dad lived near Mildura, my Mum in Launceston, and I was in Melbourne. If they’d been close enough to see what was going on, things might have been different. But I didn’t tell them. A dear aunt in a Melbourne suburb, my ‘second Mum’, didn’t realise either. However I did have that back up if I’d chosen to use it. That’s not true poverty, is it? Even then I had the roof, the clothes (which my parents bought me) and three meals a day even if they were rather strange and frugal meals. And my studies were paid for by the Government.

The next time in my life that things became frugal was when I separated from my first husband at the age of 25. That wasn’t so much because of lacking money – I had my first job as a librarian then – but more because I had never learned how to manage it. I didn’t have a clue. So once again I skimped on food. If I didn’t pay the rent, I’d lose my home. If I didn’t have the bus fare, I wouldn’t get to work. But I could juggle the eating. We used to hear a lot in those days about poor people living on pet food because it was cheaper. I never did that. Pet food was for my cat! (There’s nearly always a cat – or two.) But I’ll never forget the day I found an orange in the gutter. Someone must have just dropped it. It was huge and fresh and bright. It was sweet and full of juice. I thought I was blessed by heaven! I didn’t feel poor on that occasion; I felt rich! (Wealth is relative too.)

Now my husband and I live on the Age Pension. ‘Single pensioners are doing it tough,’ everyone agrees. ‘So are married pensioners in the private rental market,’ observed a Government Minister on TV recently. That’s us! (There’s a long, long waiting list for public housing.) At present, half our income goes on rent, and the rent is going up in a few weeks. No use looking for something cheaper – rents are high everywhere and rental properties are in huge demand. We’re allowed to earn a small amount above the pension, and we do. Also we get a few perks – travel concessions, discounts on prescription medicines, and so forth. As Seniors we qualify for other discounts at some stores and businesses. With all that, there’s nothing over for extras by the time we feed ourselves, run the car, and pay our electricity and phone bills. We buy our clothes at the local op shop – fortunately a very good one – except for shoes; we save up for them. Occasionally we have to ask the Powers That Be for a food voucher, courtesy of Vinnie’s (St Vincent de Paul). We’re grateful that’s available, and long ago gave up being embarrassed about it. There’s no room for false pride on the pension! The people who issue the vouchers tell us we’re not alone. They say they always get a big rush on food vouchers at the start of the school year, when struggling parents have to part out for school clothes and textbooks. I’m glad I don’t have that problem!

When I was married to my second husband, we were able to send our kids to private school. We had a big house in a relatively (that word again!) affluent suburb. We had a swimming pool and spa, and we threw (relatively) lavish parties – lavish in our book, anyway, though we did our own cleaning and catering. We travelled to Bali several times, and around most of Australia. I worked part-time because I didn’t need full-time income and I wanted to be home with my kids after school. Mind you, there was the time early on when he broke his leg and couldn’t work for three months, and we had two toddlers. He was a self-employed abalone diver; his wages didn’t keep coming in while he was off work. But his mates among the professional fishermen kept us in seafood. I’m here to tell you it IS possible to get sick of eating crayfish, after about three months ... but this hardly counts as doing it hard. It wasn’t until the kids were grown up and no longer living at home that we lost everything and went bankrupt! It was the time of 'the recession we had to have' when banks first encouraged people to borrow big and then tightened the screws. (Many years later I cheered the revenge movie The Bank as if it had really happened.) Not coincidentally, that marriage broke up at the same time. We’d grown apart, and the financial stresses didn’t help.

I was still bankrupt when I met my third and present husband. He was self-employed and in the last throes of paying off huge debts so as to avoid bankruptcy. Nevertheless we managed to find a nice little flat in Brighton, Melbourne, another relatively affluent suburb, and run two cars (no cats at that time, and only one computer). We were very happy. Someone offered him a well-paid job and he accepted gladly. I was able to go off unemployment benefits, or Job Search Allowance as it’s now called, and stop looking for ridiculously unsuitable jobs. I was free to teach Reiki, do psychic readings and healing sessions, all from home, and teach creative writing courses at TAFE Colleges. When we first moved to the Mt Warning Caldera, where we still live, rents were so low that Andrew said, ‘I can afford to retire and go on the pension!’

That was 15 years ago, and the pension has to stretch a lot further now. The computers are old and slow and the car is falling apart. The current cats are well fed, though. And so are we, albeit frugally at times. (I learnt from the local Krishna devotees to do a mean veggie dhal!) On the whole, I greatly enjoy my life. We don’t get to the movies much any more, but the local DVD shop rents new releases for half price on Tuesdays. We’ve got a great creek to swim in. The garage we‘ve been dealing with for some years says we can pay off the work our car so desperately needs. Our kids have helped out a lot over the years. And we had a couple of windfalls. We didn’t want my Mum or my brother-in-law to die – but when they went and did it anyway, we were grateful indeed for the inheritances they left us. My Mum (posthumously) shouted us an unforgettable trip around the world in 1998. My brother-in-law bought us an extremely comfortable new bed that was badly needed, and financed the publication of my ‘new and selected’ poems so I had a book to take to Texas when I was invited there for poetry festivals in 2006. My dear friends rallied around and did fund-raising to help me get the plane fare together. I can’t really say I’ve had a deprived life!

And now? The constant stress of exceedingly slow computers, to two writers who use them all the time, can’t be healthy! A friend who’s visiting us just now is a Mac expert and, on the basis of what we actually do on our machines, reckons we need a 24-inch iMac each. It seemed like an enormous challenge. Well whaddya know, the Government is about to give pensioners a big pre-Christmas ‘stimulus package’ which will go a long way towards the cost of one of those computers! We’re still cogitating on how to pay for the other without waiting years to collect it – but nothing’s impossible; my life has taught me that.

There are times when I’ve struggled and done without, other times when I’ve lived very well indeed. All my husbands and I always had to work for our money, like our parents before us, and I can justify my pension by all the taxes I paid in previous decades. ‘I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor,’ said some famous person whose name escapes me, ‘And rich is better.’ Well I’ve been comfortable and I’ve been a battler, and happiness has little to do with either state. I’ve been well-to-do and miserable, struggling and happy – and vice-versa at times. I’ve had episodes of being worried and scared; and more of them when I was – relatively – affluent. The more you have, the more you stand to lose.

But poor? I think of beggars I saw in Calcutta, street children in Peru, TV images of people dying in famines. No, I’ve never been poor!

The Environment and Me

I haven't received an email from the organiser of Blog Action Day who said in his blog hours ago that he was about to send them out to all registered blog owners. Does this mean I am not registered? Did he think I didn't write "real" blogs? (He said they would all be checked to see.)

Never mind, I'm doing it anyway. In fact I have now posted blogs on the topic of the environment at all my MySpace blogs and my other Blogspot (see links at right). And have been involved also in an amazing interview Andrew has posted on his Blogspot and linked to from his MySpace. I even made a connection to my latest post on Writer's Resource Center. Oh I do love jumping on bandwagons! When I believe in the Cause, that is.

I've posted poems, I've discoursed on the importance of cooperating with Nature, i.e. the nature spirits, and given instructions, I've reminisced about specific experiences on that score in both Texas and Australia, I've collaborated on the aforesaid interview which deals with both science and philosophy ... and now it's much later in the day and I just want to have a spontaneous rant.

I grew up in Tasmania. It was so freezing in winter that as a child I once fainted from the cold. It was so parochial that I've never stopped being glad I got away in my teens, albeit not by choice. Last time I was there, already nine and a half years ago, many places seemed so seedy and economically depressed, I was glad all over again that fate ensured I didn't end up stuck there forever. (Even though Merbein, near Mildura, was in many ways worse ... but that's another story, and after two years there I escaped to Melbourne and never looked back.)

And yet, Tasmania in my younger childhood was a beautiful place to grow up. Its natural wonders nourished me in so many ways! Friends who visit nowadays tell me it's still beautiful. I can only say, "You ain't seen nuthin'." We used to have a lot more forests. Now, as you drive along the roads, they appear to be running through forests; but penetrate only six trees in and you're confronted with barren wastes where all the trees have been logged, nothing left but bare earth and some timber debris. People still exclaim over the beauty of the Cataract Gorge at Launceston, my home town. I can't see it myself – that shallow trickle over the rocks, which has pertained for decades now, was once a frothing torrent, a mini-Niagara. Now THAT was spectacular! And then much of the water was diverted for hydro-electricity. The same old arguments were used – jobs, money, economic stability. Hmmm, not so you'd notice. Over the years, the lsland always seems to sink back into depression. The very ground looks tired.

I remember when I was little how the water near Burnie was highly coloured as if painted in reds and ochres, bright but bilious tints, as toxic chemicals were pumped out into it. And I can still hear my parents approving ignorantly of the reafforestation program the Government began when I was young, planting acres of pine saplings instead of replacing the slaughtered indigenous trees. It all started way back then. Protestors and activists, often behaving heroically, saved the Franklin but not Lake Pedder.

And now "They" want to build a pulp mill on the River Tamar! That's the river where I learned to swim. Surprisingly for an island-dweller, I'm no good in surf. I grew up on the banks of the Tamar, some way from the sea. Do I really have to contemplate those waters, those beaches, those shores polluted by a mill, the wild life habitat changing, endangered species dying out?

A media release from the Wilderness Society on 13 September speaks of the huge appetite the mill will have for forests all over Tasmania, millions of tonnes, "according to maps and tables buried deep within Gunns’ Integrated Impact Statement ". In a media release on 14th October, they are saying, "Very conservative estimates of the carbon emissions generated by the logging needed to feed the mill indicate over 10 million tonnes of CO2 would be emitted each year. This is equivalent to 2% of Australia’s emissions or an additional 2.3 million cars on the road each year. Once more studies are completed and more understanding is gained about the amount of carbon stored in Tasmania’s forests, net emissions are expected to be found to be 2–3 times higher than this." I'm angry. This is not progress!

There's no going home again – but what if home could go forwards? We really don't have to put up with being dictated to by the greedy and short-sighted. The election's been called; let's boot this mob out while we've got the chance. The Opposition is little better on this particular issue; let's make our views known vociferously. Tasmania used to be a Paradise. Can it be one again? I believe so. Not the old one but a new, regenerated one.

We need to start now!

TEXAS POETRY TOUR: Environmental magick

It's Blog Action Day, Monday 15th October 2007 (my time), when bloggers all around the world – 14,000 or so, last I heard – are posting about the environment. What has that to do with my tour of Texas last year? Well, it wasn't only poetry that happened on that trip.

At Kerrville in particular, I felt a strong, mystical connection with the land itself. At home I have a conscious connection with nature spirits – those beings often called faeries – who are definitely not merely imaginary! In various ways my husband Andrew and I have worked with them for years. Some of this is recounted in our blog The Truth About Fairies.

My guest room at Anne and Harry's place (see previous post) had a balcony overlooking their back garden and a section of untended bush around the side of the house. I would sometimes sit out there alone and write or meditate, or simply enjoy the view.

I was surprised to notice that the nature spirits there made their presence known to me, showing themselves to my inner vision and communicating telepathically, not in words so much as feelings and the particular flavour of their energy. I realised I'd had some sort of unconscious expectation that only the nature spirits associated with my home locality would connect with me, not those in a place which I was only briefly visiting. I tuned in and asked why, and they told me that (a) it was an acknowledgment of all the work I had done in cooperation with nature spirits in Australia and (b) the world is all one, it is only we humans who see different parts of it as separate; the nature spirits all over the world are connected and in communication with each other.

It was a joy to be greeted by these special beings, who were indeed associated with that place in Kerrville. And it didn't stop there. They began imparting wisdom and insights. Some of the people I met in Kerrville, knowing that I also work as a psychic reader, consulted me in that capacity. I didn't cart my huge crystal ball overseas with me, but I did take a special crystal which is attuned to it, and I took my Voyager™ Tarot.

For these readings, which took place on "my" balcony, I was also aware of the local nature spirits speaking to me, and through me. They were very special readings indeed! It's not an overstatement to say they had a sacred quality. Not only that, but certain Native American spirits also communicated with me – not nature spirits, but the spirits of people long dead.

In one reading, I received information for my client concerning a Native American tribal leader I had no knowledge of. I described his face, and other details which made her think it must be a historically famous person of whom there was a local statue. A few days later she took me to see it. There were statues of other, less famous men there too, and I recognised one of them as the man I had seen in my vision.

"Why me?" I kept wondering. I gradually got in touch with a long ago past life when I was intimately connected with that land. I saw myself planting crops there. I understood that I was planting blue corn – a thing I didn't even know existed until I started sharing these visions with friends. To me the notion of blue corn seemed preposterous, but apparently it is commonplace in America. So I guess it was a kind of homecoming for me!

I also connected with witches in Texas, being one myself. Witchcraft is very much about care for the environment. We revere all life – theoretically at least. I guess it depends what you think is alive. At one ritual event I participated in (after I left Kerrville) I became excited to perceive that a nature spirit had entered into a small rock. I pointed this out to a man with whom I was setting up the ritual space, explaining that we should place this rock in the circle. He didn't get it. He made some remark about it looking a bit like a gnome, and humoured me about including it, but he obviously thought it was just a rock. (Though as to that "just", even rocks are themselves sentient beings ... in my understanding.) After the ritual, when we were dismantling the circle, I wasn't quick enough to stop this same man from kicking that rock carelessly aside. I was shocked at his disrespect, but he only shrugged. A little while later, he went to retrieve his thongs (I think they're called flip-flops in America) after doing the ritual barefoot. He was puzzled to find one had vanished inexplicably and didn't turn up no matter how we hunted.

Next thing, he exclaimed that he'd lost his pentacle, which he'd been using to try and pendulum the whereabouts of his footwear. This was more serious! The ground was fairly bare and the pentacle, though small, was shiny silver, yet no-one could see it anywhere. At this point I went aside and spoke telepathically to the local nature spirits, saying, "Hey guys, his shoe is one thing, but his pentacle is his sacred tool. That's not fair; he really needs it." Suddenly he said, "Here it is!" looking down at his feet – and there it was, to be sure, yet we hadn't seen it there a minute before.

Often even the most spiritually conscious people simply don't take into account the nature spirits who inhabit our world alongside us. Perhaps it's because most believe – as I did for many years – that such beings aren't real. I have learned a lot about them in the course of my psychic work over the years. I have learned that they have a role in looking after our earth and all its life forms. But now that the environment has suffered so much at human hands, they are retreating to what few areas of wilderness they can still find.

A remarkable woman called Machaelle Small Wright, who works closely with Nature on her property at Perelandra, has passed on, in her Garden Workbook, their request that we create sanctuaries for them if possible.

She suggests we find a suitable area, preferably near our garden (but it could be the top of a cupboard if that's all you've got) and rope it off or mark the boundary some way, then invite the nature spirits in. If you know how to test with pendulum or kinesiology, you can ask if they accept; or you can request a sign. [Wright gives detailed instructions and drawings in several of her books, to show you how to do kinesiology testing with your fingers. Not having that facility here, the pendulum and asking for a sign are my own suggestions, which also work.] This sanctuary should be a place where you guarantee no humans will physically intrude (though animals are fine). So if it's on your land, you'll have to let the weeds grow! If ever you need to dismantle the sanctuary, e.g. if moving house, please let the nature spirits know beforehand when this will take place, and perhaps invite them in advance to join you again when you get a new one set up.

You can use this sanctuary to build your relationship with Nature. Knowing the spirits are there, you can focus in your mind on that area when you wish to communicate with them, or even stand or sit near it. It's important for us to work in cooperation with the forces of Nature, for our own sakes and that of other life forms and the planet itself. There are many ways of doing so, and of caring for our environment. A conscious cooperation with the nature spirits is an often overlooked way which is remarkably easy to implement.

The pictures in this post are of Anne and Harry's back yard in Kerrville,

and the beautiful back gate of their magickal property.