We have forgotten what normal is in the natural world. Our plastic pails and sunscreen below pristine blue sky are aberrations. Bushfires, and regeneration, should remind us of our impermanence. The Earth abides, not us.
This summer I became a dune. I sat with the morning light and became a particle of sand – just another grain of quartz. I disappeared into the sand hills and the wind tossed the voice of the sea around me.
While the waves caressed the slick sand below, stroking the beach with one last slop of foam, I watched and witnessed. I become the dune's eyes and ears – its self-consciousness.
Lizard tracks from nocturnal wanderings crisscross my skin. Wallaby tracks too are padded in the sand, leading down to the beach. Why do they bound down to the beach at night? Why do they gather there beneath the stars? I don't know.
There are sandpiper tracks too, dainty little steps that have left behind beautiful hieroglyphics. I see them before the wind covers them up, never to be seen again. I try to decipher them. I am guessing they are sandpiper tracks. Perhaps they are sanderling. I don't really know. I am new to the dunes so I don't know much about myself. I need more time, not just an hour or a morning or a week. I need years here to discover who I am and who my colleagues and components are.
A pied oystercatcher trots on the beach. I know them – they are easy to identify by their long orange-red beaks and black and white plumage. They seem patient and wise as they search for molluscs. There’s a masked plover on the beach too, crying familiarly – they are easy to remember because of their loud piercing call. And then I hear the screech of the pacific gull, with its unmistakable maritime call, as it swoops overhead. This is all music to my ears.
Mirounga leonina, the great southern elephant seal, used to be here, heaving waves of blubber over me, chasing females, defending harems. But the elephant seals, which can weigh up to 5,000 kilograms, are long gone. Hunted for oil and hounded to remote islands, the grunting and groaning that vibrated through their trunk-like proboscis is now vanished from the sounds of the dunes. We are poorer for this, an impoverishment now forgotten by the bathers and walkers below. But the dunes remember; in the landscape the memory remains, and if I close my eyes I can hear their riotous calls. Sometimes we must close our eyes to remember what we have lost.
Recently an elephant seal was born on King Island for the first time in 200 years. Maybe Mirounga leonina will return to these dunes too someday. Someday.
With open eyes I hear the snitchy songs of other birds – perhaps stints and snipes, or maybe a godwit – I don’t know, I need to learn so many new songs; I am just a beginner.
A gull glides over and screeches. The churn of the sea waves and the changing of the tide is omnipresent. Loud is the click and ring of cicadas in the thick green boobyalla, and the buzz of bees and flies and a host of others insects is surprisingly loud too. The more I listen to the dunes, the more I hear. Such music! Have we forgotten how to listen to such natural symphonies?
A butterfly awkwardly flies past and doesn’t make a sound, although surely if my hearing was as good as Horton’s I would hear the fluttering flap of their wings and perhaps the wee cry of a world of Who’s crying out for help. Perhaps humans are like the citizens of Who-ville: on a speck of dust, on a grain of sand, sending out messages into space; sending out SOS’s about the world’s problems, about the infinite hunger we have for our finite resources, about the loss of seal songs in the dunes.
Will there be a Horton to save us? No, we will have to save ourselves from our hunger for consumption. It is up to us to draw some lines in the sand and say enough is enough; we need to learn to live within our limits. We need to live in harmony with the dunes.
But I digress.
The morning dew on the lime-green blades of spinifex is now gone as the summer sun rises higher to try to dominate the day. But there is no domination today, for this morning the sky is yellowed; there is thick smoke and haze from distant west coast bushfires that have muted the sun to a soft orange orb hanging above.
The sun is softly eclipsed by the smoke and looks primordial, from a time of the earth still forming.
The sweet smell of the bush fire smoke is not disagreeable. Maybe it is from leatherwood or wattle or blue gums. Its fragrance is like fresh herbs mixed to flavour a good meal. It mixes with the salty sea air in a familiar complement.
The surrounding haze seems somehow familiar too, as if this smoky air is more the summer norm then azure blue skies and bright sun. The dunes tell me that indeed this was the norm for thousands of years, due to lightning-lit fires and Aboriginal burn-offs.
We have forgotten what normal is in the natural world. Our plastic pails and sunscreen below pristine blue sky are aberrations. Bushfires, and regeneration, should remind us of our impermanence. The Earth abides, not us. We are just visitors to this place, temporary campers. The earth is still forming. Even dunes come and go. We still live in the shadow of prehistoric times.
We are supposed to be custodians, but we have not been very good at this. We are clever but sometimes not very smart. No other animal or species lives beyond its means like we do. We think we can get away with it and our ecological delusions are strong, but we live this dream in a fool’s paradise. We do have limits.
Squawk! Another gull flies over, interrupts my thoughts, brings me back to my dune dreaming. The dunes do not fret about human problems, so why should I?
But I guess this is my role, to be a reflective consciousness, to do this and still be one with the dunes. This is a lofty goal but not impossible, and the rewards can be enlightening.
A breeze shuffles through the boobyalla branches and ants migrate up grass blades and over dry wattle leaves and twigs and sprigs of dry sea weed. The day unfolds in the world of the dunes, a word without concern for people, for stock markets, or political polemics. I am being taught how to be a good grain of sand.
How am I enlightened by the sand and sea, by the elements? I think the simple beauty of it all enlightens me. I am made wiser by the fragile thin track of a snake etched in the sand and by the ruffled patterns that the wind has sculptured up my sandy skin.
I am enlightened by the beauty I see and the harmony of the sea grass, shrubs, bushfire smoke and swirling sound of the sea. This wholeness is good and to feel a part of it is intoxicating.
Even if only for a morning, to become a dune is enthralling. I wish I could stay a dune forever.
This article was first published in issue 80 of Forty South magazine.
Don Defenderfer is a native of San Francisco who once went on a holiday to Alaska where he met an Australian who told him to visit Tasmania. So he did, and while here he met a woman. That was 30 years ago. He was state coordinator for Landcare Tasmania for many years, a job that allowed him to be inspired by not only the beauty of the Tasmanian landscape but by the many people that are trying to repair and renew it. He has a Masters Degree in Social Ecology and a Bachelor of Environmental Studies with a minor in writing. He has published three volumes of poetry, and his work has appeared in newspapers and periodicals, including The New York Times and The Australian.