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News yesterday of how Chernobyl is now being considered as a SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest) shocked me. Chernobyl. SSSI, No. Once alight and radioactive, evacuated and devastated ...30 years on to is now to become one of the most diverse and potentially one of the world's largest protected wilderness spots. Does not compute.
Nice to Meet You
I grew up in a sleepy, sometime very smelly, suburb. I prayed every night for the source of that stench (a local factory, and possibly my mum's thrice-boiled cabbage) to close and, years later in a Ferngully The Last Rainforest-kinda way, it finally did....then proceeded to fulfill its corporate duty by creating a nature reserve. As long as I had been aggrieved by its presence (much more so than the geese and ducks who had called it home), a chat with a botanist turned everything that I'd believed about contamination on its head.
Not every question should have an answer
Taoist principle
Humans are WEIRD. I'm weird. We're all weird (you're weirder than me, I think). And if we consider ourselves to be part of the natural world (the terms nature / natural are tricky customers), imagine how weird nature actually is. Very. Hypocrisy, contradiction abound: epic forest fires cause untold destruction followed by phenomenal re-growth. Industry chemicals leached into soil can often create opportunities for prolific growth as rare species feed from the strange cocktail elements. Contradiction has its bittersweet yin / yang. Or maybe a pragmatic optimism that we sometimes overlook. A desire for life shines brightly, regardless.
Nuclear Futures, is no stranger to pragmatic optimism. Now raising money for the their symbol of peace to the survivors of nuclear testing all over the world, they are shifting a massive sculpture from Australia (where the organisation is based) to Nagasaki to mark the 70 yeasr bombings in Japan. Help them reach the target by donating here.Nice to Meet You
I grew up in a sleepy, sometime very smelly, suburb. I prayed every night for the source of that stench (a local factory, and possibly my mum's thrice-boiled cabbage) to close and, years later in a Ferngully The Last Rainforest-kinda way, it finally did....then proceeded to fulfill its corporate duty by creating a nature reserve. As long as I had been aggrieved by its presence (much more so than the geese and ducks who had called it home), a chat with a botanist turned everything that I'd believed about contamination on its head.
Not every question should have an answer
Taoist principle
Humans are WEIRD. I'm weird. We're all weird (you're weirder than me, I think). And if we consider ourselves to be part of the natural world (the terms nature / natural are tricky customers), imagine how weird nature actually is. Very. Hypocrisy, contradiction abound: epic forest fires cause untold destruction followed by phenomenal re-growth. Industry chemicals leached into soil can often create opportunities for prolific growth as rare species feed from the strange cocktail elements. Contradiction has its bittersweet yin / yang. Or maybe a pragmatic optimism that we sometimes overlook. A desire for life shines brightly, regardless.
"The sculpture is inspired by Yalata community's own search for peace and harmony
as Australian atomic survivors. It will create a unique Indigenous Australian presence in Japan,
and provide recognition for atomic survivor communities."
I have no idea what to do with all these observations except admit that it's safer to bet we know next to nothing, rather than pretend we're closer to certainty about anything. The wonderful afterglow of a bunch of bonkers facts is that glimpse of a world that isn't answerable to rationale, to logic, to deducible atomised facts. That makes me very happy because it is a world closer to the creative process and wonder.
