Hearts, Hands and Bodies

Hearts, Hands & Bodies (work in progress) - charcoal & ink on rice paper

I’m an eternal optimist. I hold onto hope in the midst of despair at the state of the world. Yesterday was our big Federal election in Australia and as I write this blogpost, I am still uncertain whether we have a Labour government with plenty of Greens representatives, or a Labour government with only a few Greens and Teals. To contemplate any other scenario is not worth considering so I don’t put my time into that.

Instead I’m sharing my latest ‘work in progress’ drawing. I spent quite a bit of time projecting images I took when in the forest, onto a long banner of paper. Only to realise that the top half was better than the bottom bit which meant tearing the paper to reconfigure it as a collage.

Nothing is stuck down yet on the white paper substrate. I could decide to add or subtract more arms and hands. When I went to title this blogpost, I thought Many Hands was too superficial for what this drawing is really about.

This week I had to attend an online training for election day polling conduct for our local Greens candidate. There were over 100 people on that zoom call (although I couldn’t see everyones faces) and I felt a huge responsibility for whatever I would say and do when handing out how to vote cards.

What it brought home to me was that everyone on that call were passionate activists for wanting change. They were putting their hearts into something that may have been quite challenging and unfamiliar, stepping out of their comfort zone to put themselves on the front line for conversations with voters about change and democtractic process.

When I put my drawing at the top of this blogpost, I realised that it seemed to encapsulate what we artists were doing in the threatened Takayna/Tarkine forest. Putting our hearts, hands and bodies around trees to protect them from senseless destruction. Engaging our hearts in active passion for a cause we all believe in.

We were only a hundred or so people in Takayna, Tasmania over the Easter weekend, but maybe our actions will have an effect on government policy. Maybe that whoever wins power and is in government will stop all logging and mining activities in the old growth forests in Australia. All it takes is a signature and a resolve to protect rather than destroy.

Whenever I think that all hope is gone, I remember the anti-whaling campaigns of the 1970s. How in one abrupt about turn, Australia put an end to whaling in the last whaling station in Albany, Western Australia which led to the Whale Protection Act of 1978.

But it took the actions of brave eco-warriors from Greenpeace to turn the tide of public opinion. Greenpeace activists went out in the dead of light into two inflatable Zodiacs to block three whaling ships from leaving Middleton Bay in Albany. One of the people on board was a Canadian journalist whose photos of dying whales galvanised the worlds’ attention on this industry and changed public opinion.

Tourism from whale watching in Australia is worth over AUD $47 million according to a report from 2008. Instead of killing whales, people are excited to catch sight of one of the 60,000 whales which annually migrate north from the rich feeding grounds in Antarctica.

Imagine a tourist industry in Australia based on tree hugging, or ‘Shinrin-yoku’, the Japanese practice of forest bathing for its physical and mental health benefits. All it takes is a signature on paper. Positive change is possible.

A rainbow of hope at the election booth