Exciting Bathurst bus trips a go go

Went to Bathurst by train then bus on Friday night - very exciting impromptu adventure, packed my pj's, took a thermos of milky chai, grabbed some books and off I went. I was staying at a nun's house (she was away and they'd run out of accomodation so were housing us with the Sisters). Nun's house very tidy - very very tidy. Apparently cleanliness is next to Godliness afterall. Could not help strange vouyeristic fascination with what kind of homewares / cutlery / paintings a nun would choose for her home. Had a bath and read my book will way later than I should have, slept like a log, woke up early to yapping dog in adjacent yard. Would not stop barking, I felt less than charitable towards it at times, despite many calm home furnishings.

Participated in a workshop on Saturday on deep ecology using Joanna Macy's techniques, being held at the Bathurst Mercy and Justice Centre. The Centre is run by the Sisters of Mercy, noteably Pat Linneane, the workshop was being delivered by Ruth Rosenheck from the Rainforest Info Centre in Lismore.

Deep Ecology, for those not familiar with the term, is a school of environmental philosophy. The term 'deep ecology' was coined by Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess and essentially says (according to me) that all of the thinking of modern western humans that says that humanity is seperate from the rest of the world - from other species, from the planet's function as a whole - is fundamentally flawed. In many ways deep ecology is more like a spiritual understanding than an intellectual one, and in that sense has to be felt, not just understood, although the disciplines of quantum physics, ecology and systems thinking have contributed to the arguments of deep ecology. Buddhism and other nature based religions also overlap with many of the tenets of deep ecology. It is really just a modern phrasing of a set of ideas that have been around since the dawn of humanity - and are represented in all in tact indigenous communities - but have been uniquely and devestatingly lost from parlance of modern western people (living in 'Industrial Growth Economies').

Ideas that stem from this understanding may include the need for cooperation rather than competition (we are all in it together!), a rejection of material acquisition as a benchmark of human development (on both the individual and societal scale), of respecting our place in a complex system that has value in and of itself, realising that the system is far more complex than we can get our heads around, that we should try to live within it not dominate and control it, and far more than I can jot down here! The implications are that any action we take to repair damage to the world that comes from within this mindset of seperateness, is doomed to fail.

A good day but a motley crew, at very different places in our thinking on the themes we were exploring. That said there was also a lot of commonality and in many ways I am especially in awe of people who are willing to discard convention and do some risky (as in personally exposing, not as in unsafe) exercises in a group setting, especially if they are coming fresh to this kind of group interraction/discussion themes. It was actually good doing the exercises after having read them explained for facilitators recently in Joanna Macy & Molly Brown's book 'Coming back to Life - Practices to reconnect our lives, our world' (1988), meant I knew what to expect, meant I didn't feel silly doing the despair and empowerment work and expressing feelings. I did find it strange that as per the last workshop I did on change and connection (with a different group, slightly different topic) I made everyone laugh when I was describing my experience in one of the solo exercises. Hmmm. Am I the class clown? I wasn't playing for laughs; it was nice though, nice to unite people in well intentioned humour in the midst of serious pondering. Perhaps my analytical approach to my own inner work sounds suitably neurotic to help break the tension. Or maybe it's funny to be so honest.

Quite a few nuns attended, I got a lift back with a Sister from another order from Southern Sydney. We have rip roaring conversation about globalisation, aid, corruption, values and spiritual life in the west. I have so much respect for these self contained women who have devoted their lives to faith in the good in us all and learning and service.

Today was... open brown-eyed eager face of a weathered, worldly facilitator with a beanie, an Indian shawl and one lopped finger. Her brown skin spoke of an outdoor life that I too could love. It was my fascination with and gentle interregation of these plain clothed nuns who seem like a particular breed of self-possessed woman soft, round and becardiganed, peering through spectacles, or tall and well spoken, politically savvy no-nonsense, archly genderless, like a stern nobleman/woman scholar.