Environment
Where Have All My Spiders Gone?
It’s Yule time again and the delicate pointed stars of Christmas gladden my heart.
A Burning Memory To Be Shared On The Other Side Of The World.
After a short visit to the US in 1994 for a financial planning conference, I flew to Canada for the first time to visit my two sons and their wives, all four of whom had been roaming around the world for years. In the early hours of an Easter holiday morning, while a snowy blizzard howled outside, these words spilled easily from my heart and soul.
A Poem and a Story For My Son
Pointed, painted Christmas stars,
with flags of white
setting out their boundaries
Red-legged bellies
web my early morning walk
and try to catch my steaming breath.
Gossamer curtains fall in silken folds.
to hide tunnel creatures,
lurking still and quiet.
Paper-thin crevice dwellers
unfold their origami legs,
to defy my belief that they are real.
What crazy science is this?
As Pepper Dog walked towards the water tank, I beheld a stone in levitation. Pea gravel, round and brown, suspended in early morning light. This cannot be true! An old Indian rope trick? But, no! Robbie, my Indian is safe abed!
I looked more closely. It was pea gravel wrapped in silk and anchored something. But, what? I stared upwards. Between two red gums my spider has cast her net. Binding their leaves and flowers which are tossing like waves at sea; yet held together so softly without restriction. Holding them so strongly she sat athwart her steel bands with impunity.
What perfect tension — springing within my soul. Her anchor holds it all — and touches nothing.
How does she know?
How did she do?
To raise the stone, to drop the line, to set the axis.
Who told her she is to engineer, defying gravity while yet bringing it to bear, in her daily search for food? Was it she who taught the Egyptians to raise and set their great stones?
She tugs at my heart, with her silken thread of miracles.
A sad truth reveals itself as I walk on, with Pepper. No longer did I need to brush the early morning company from my eyes and my nose. They travelled with me so infrequently, these days. No bush flies in my bush!
Oh, dear God. Is this why all my spiders have gone?
(Poem for Colin, Toronto, Canada Apr 94.)
Being Inspired To Awe and An Uncomfortable State Of Knowing
The experience of seeing that small gravel stone suspended five or six feet above the ground, as the tension anchor for a web that was twenty feet above me, was awe-inspiring.
Yet by 1994, after living in the hills for ten years, the loss of wildlife of the small variety (spiders, flies, lizards, beetles etc) was already clearly apparent. Once, our bush block was a thriving community of scorpions, centipedes, geckos, moths, and all manner of scuttling creatures.
In early spring, only the most intrepid adventurer (well-armed with a glass of red) undertakes a walk in the bush at dusk, as dozens of orb weavers and their sisters began their nightly task of repairing and renovating their homes. A backyard blitz indeed!
Another ten years later, by 2014, the continuing losses were catastrophic. Turn over an old log in the bush — and you are lucky to find a bush cockroach or two. Sadly, the simple fact of being present in the middle of a bush block brings damaging pressure on the environment that we do not see or feel, from day to day — only when the accumulated impact is undeniable.
Loss of habitat is more than clearing trees and shrubs, to build
• houses,
• hospitals,
• schools,
• supermarkets, and
• places of employment.
Almost invisible but major loss of habitat is occurring through gradual and ongoing degradation of the remaining bush, where we don’t take active steps to maintain and protect it.
Trees Die And Habitat Degradation Increases.
The death (by old age) of a huge Banksia tree by our back lawn meant a huge loss of food the following spring for parrots, possums, and iridescent flies of incredible colours. Its loss put added pressure on the Banksia that survive and this, of itself, leads to ongoing, subtle habitat degradation. So, more Banksia die.
We can no longer occupy a space on this planet, without making a personal, individual contribution to its wellbeing. It is not enough to ‘recycle’, we must also renew, restrain, and rehabilitate.
Supporting habitat gardens in backyards and on community reserves are first steps towards repairing and healing our environment.
Your habitat plants are those native bushes that were thriving in your own backyard before it was your backyard!
The challenge is to sustain our commitment to nurture and restore the habitat of wetlands and bushland both. It’s no longer a matter of being ‘a greenie’. It is life itself that is at stake!
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