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The Great Aussie Bush of Beauty and Terror
Finding hope as our beloved country burns
A steady downpour of rain cuts through the smoky skies of Sydney after weeks of raging fires. I wake to the sound of heavy rain on the corrugated iron roof and imagine it quenching out fires spreading through bush land.
It’s a cleansing, a clearing of the air.
It’s three days since my Grandma’s funeral. I think how she’ll miss these events, the fires, the rain…not that she had the mental faculties anymore to be concerned about the weather.
Death was a sweet relief to her old and tired body.
Out the window a cockatoo cackles past. Heading for the bush.
The Aussie bush, mystical place that it is, teeming with electric-blue wing birds with vivid red underbellies, snakes in earthy camouflage slithering to shelter, koalas lazing in gum trees, unaware of their fans taking photos below.
A whole orchestra of life playing out unseen, only heard in snippets, a flock of lorikeets flying overhead, the whip of a tail disappearing into bracken.
It’s difficult to grasp the significance of the bush until you’re standing in the middle of it, trees towering above you, redolent with eucalypt. The sacredness reverberates on a cellular level…
