“For here/Am I sitting in a tin can/ Far above the world/ Planet Earth is blue/ And there’s nothing I can do” - Space Oddity by David Bowie

Today is the 26th January and I wanted to write something about Australia/Invasion Day.

However when I was searching for a picture of my Sorry artist book, I came across these images of my heart in stress and at rest. They reminded me of the rare planetary event from last night when all the planets were in alignment, which then had me singing the lyrics from David Bowie’s song Space Oddity.

I think Planet Earth is blue at the moment, certainly there are plenty of doomsday messages in the news and on social media platforms. We are collectively going through massive change across the globe, yet I cannot be angry or despondent. Change can happen suddenly or it can be almost imperceptible as day by day, year by year perceptions change about what is acceptable, right and worthy of our protests.

When I was in Sydney a few days ago, I walked the bluestone paved streets around The Rocks, marvelling at the preserved historic buildings and laneways. One of the reasons these are still standing is because of the famous Green Bans in the 1970s enacted by the BLF, the Builders Labourers Federation led by its secretary, Jack Mundey.

Photographs of him and other protesters being dragged off the street and arrested lined the laneway near my hotel. I thought of him and the other protests through the years which have saved the whales, enacted a moratorium on nuclear power in Australia, preserved large tracts of bushland from development, stopped sand mining on K’gari (formerly Fraser Island) and the list goes on.

I remember too, joining 300,000 others walking across Princes Bridge in Melbourne in 2020 as part of the Peoples Walks for Reconciliation. According to Reconciliation Australia, bridge walks across the nation became the “largest display of public support for a single cause in Australian history”. But it took eight more years until Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered the National Apology.

So I take heart that while there is chaos in the world, opportunity arises for change. In 2021, I was creating daily ink drawings using luscious Sennelier inks. When I look at them now I see they are almost presentient of the heart images that were taken the following year. They are pictures of my heart in stress and at rest, only a heartbeat (or two) away from each other. They look like the ‘Blue Marble Earth’ picture taken by the Apollo 17 crew on NASA’s last manned space mission.

Our precious Earth, worth all the protests to preserve and protect through chaos and adversity. To remember that we are all on the one planet; each person, animal, plant, mountain and sea connected by the earth’s beating heart. Something to think about this January 26, 2024.