Tag: flood

Keeping Nature at Bay

I can feel the turn of the season. The sultry humidity of summer is fading into cooler nights. Today as I glance upward, I appreciate the warmth of my coffee. The sky is rapidly transforming – the bright blue to grey, the grey to charcoal. The fresh cleansing scent of rain approaches on the strengthening breeze. The soil is already soaked but mother nature clearly intends to saturate it just a little more.

Blue to grey, grey to charcoal

Isn’t it funny, ironic really, that we crave nature within our lives – as much greenery as possible both in and around our homes. Clean clear bodies of water within reach. The sound of birdsong over the screech of traffic. Fresh air drifting through trees instead of smog polluting our lungs… And yet, we spend much of our time actually keeping nature at bay!

We deny the nature of our bodies and the natural ageing process. We rip the hair from our skin. We both bleach and tan our bodies. We apply potions and lotions, and resort to surgery in the quest to preserve physical youth.

We love and tend to our gardens, and yet spend much of our free time cutting them back, killing the plants we don’t like and mowing the forever growing grass in an attempt to sculpt our surrounds rather than leaving them to grow as nature intended.

We build houses overlooking oceans, perched on clifftops and lining the banks of rivers, only to deny the water’s natural flow during a king tide, or a storm, or a flood. Keeping the water at bay with barricades of sandbags.

It just occurred to me that we have taken on an eternal battle with an ultimately foreseeable outcome. We seek to have close contact with mother nature, and the general populous is doing what they can to preserve our natural environment, yet paradoxically, we constantly find ourselves keeping nature at bay.

We may seek to control our planet and mould its natural components to our desires, but in the end – no matter what the outcome – the planet will win.

From Devastation to Regeneration.

As I felt the refreshing rain sprinkle my face while I walked this morning, I realised that nature really knows how to take care of itself – especially when we don’t.

We are always taught to sweep out our own homes, to get rid of the clutter for our own health, yet we don’t take care of nature by creating firebreaks, or allowing back burning and small fires to sweep out the excess plants and dead leaves – the clutter – from beneath the trees.

With all this buildup, like a house filled with dirt, dust and rubbish… Our bush, our forests and our plains become fodder for a fire just waiting to consume them.

Years of drought have left vast expanses of land and bush as kindling for the fire poised to strike. And strike it did. Huge areas – larger than some of the world’s countries – were left decimated by fire. Totally burnt out. And yet, nature has a way of healing itself. As our famous poet, Dorothea McKellar expressed, we have gone from a land of drought, to flooding rains.

When the smoke haze has washed away, the clouds have cleared and the blue skies return, not only will we see the devastation left by fire, but the rebirth of that very same land. Just as we will also see the true grit of our nation’s people as they rebuild their lives.