Go plant a tree!

Graduation book 

When my daughter graduated from high school recently, she was given a copy of a little book illustrated with woodcuts about a fictional character who discovered the secret and the power of one individual being able to accomplish something really amazing. The book is called The Man Who Planted Trees and is written by Jean Giorno. It was written after one of the world wars, no doubt in the spirit of somehow wanting to see hope in a better future after so much gratuitous destruction and waste of life. It is hard to get the book, but luckily you can read the online story and a bit about the author.

In fact there was a man who made planting trees his life's work. When I started blabbering about him one day, my father recalled having met him during the time he was a botanist and agriculturalist in East Africa. Sir Richard St Barbe Baker was even known as the Man of the Trees and he founded a worldwide organisation called Men of the Trees, which is still active. He accomplished so much to make known the advantages of planting trees - knowledge which is now taken for granted in countries like Australia which cut through whole swathes of lush forest for pasture and ended up with dry, brown, eroded earth. Denuded, scarred, barren earth not even fit for native animals to graze on. It's still there, but farmers are learning to plant trees to raise the water table, to bring the topsoil back, to make the land green again.

Meanwhile, as the annual haze drifts over us here in our beautifully (and deliberately) green garden city, I am reminded of how each generation somewhere has to learn the lessons of responsibility to the environment the hard way. The smoke comes from forest fires in nearby Sumatra, Indonesia, where farmers and plantation owners burn trees to clear land for cultivation, despite a government ban. The air quality is worse in Malaysia and some flights have been diverted, schools are being closed and the elderly and asthmatic advised to stay indoors. In 1997 and 1998 the economic loss to Malaysia (and the region)was reported to be billions of dollars. Not good for us neighbours, but not good ultimately for Sumatra either. Loss of tree cover can lead to tragedy and loss of life in countries which realise too late that cleared land can prove a devastating cause of subsidence, mudslides and flooding on the one hand and the disappearance of diversity in the ecosystem and over-reliance on monoculture, with all the economic precariousness that brings about, on the other.

So it is heartening to hear of grassroots efforts to challenge the way things are done in order to bring back balance in the natural environment and achieve better levels of economic prosperity at the same time. Again it is a true story about one man in Kerala, India who went ahead with passionate determination to green his space. Would that we all followed his example because the warnings are dire and distressing.

So long as greed, corruption and injustice walk this planet so will our fragile biosphere be compromised. We all need to have a bit of the spirit of Richard St Barbe Baker or the farmer from Kerala in us, and never underestimate the power of one, nor the assistance that can be made available.

"Look not at your own capacities, for divine bestowal can transform a drop into an ocean; it can make a tiny seed a lofty tree."

Kahlil Gibran & pumpkin soup

One of the books I go back to time and again is "The Prophet" by Kahlil Gibran. I love to quote it when I send cards, or read chunks from it if I have to give a talk. When one of my brothers got married, he asked me to read the chapter on marriage. It resonates with everyone, it's universal in its message and the words have a lyrical beauty that wakens your soul from its slumber.

I was intrigued to learn that Gibran had met, and was drawn to, the personnage of 'Abdu'l-Baha, the eldest son of Baha'u'llah, prophet-founder of the Baha'i Faith. He was called by those who revered him "The Master", though he shunned that title and always maintained that his name and his station were simply that of "servant" (his name means Servant of God). Gibran drew his portrait which you can see here and read some more about their meeting.

When I was in New York in November 1992 for the Baha'i World Congress, a group of us set off on a beautiful sunny autumn day to find the house where 'Abd'ul-Baha stayed in Greenwich Village (No 48 West 10th St) at the home of Juliet Thompson in the article mentioned above. (Maybe we were standing right outside the house where Gibran lived!) But the house is privately owned so we couldn't enter. Instead we went a little further down to the Village itself and found a restaurant in the basement of one of those beautiful old houses. All nine of us needed something to warm us up so we all ordered pumpkin soup, and I have to say it was the best pumpkin soup we had tasted or will taste - ever! We called ourselves The Pumpkin Soup Group after that!

Veronica Guerin

Veronica Guerin 

In almost a week, it will be the anniversary of the assassination of someone who stood for truth and justice in the face of greed, injustice and apathy. I had not even heard of the journalist Veronica Guerin before seeing the title on a VCD in the local VideoEzy - and I picked it up because it also had Cate Blanchett's name plastered across it. But I am not sorry I did, because now I know that this woman paid with her life to change the sordid conditions she saw around her.

In 1996, this fearless young woman (she was only 37)was shot six times when she stopped at a traffic light on her way home. She had been previously assaulted by the man who put out the order to murder her, but despite that she had continued to write her exposes of Ireland's leading underworld figures and drug barons. There's an article here which gives more details.

To some extent her death was not in vain as now the law books have changed to make it more difficult for criminals to hide the source of their often ludicrously high income. And the National Union of Journalists and other media associations came up with The Guerin Principles.

At the end of the film it stated that in the 6 years since her death (now it's 8), 196 journalists had died in the course of their vocation. The conflict in Iraq must have pushed that figure up by quite a bit, I imagine.

Mystical traditions

Doris Lessing, a South African novelist I happily stumbled across browsing through the British Council library (no longer in existence) when I was teaching there, says this about encountering Sufism for the first time:

"I had exhausted what I have described as "the intellectual package" of our time, which consists of material, both philosophic and that assumption of our culture that creature comforts must be everyone's chief aim in life; then, belief in one of the churches of Marxism; a belief that politics or a political party will solve everything; science in the place of God. I was by no means the only one to have tired of this "package." In my case it was writing The Golden Notebook that taught me I must look again."

You can read the full article here Lessing is talking about her encountering "The Commanding Self" by Idries Shah in which it is explained that "his task is first of all to supply information to a culture starved of it, information that is about a genuine mystical tradition. It is an astonishing fact, and one that I first encountered thirty years ago that someone may have gone through many years of our education or--as in my case--be pretty well read within our own literary tradition, and yet have not heard much more about the great spiritual traditions than that they exist."

If we all took the trouble to look into the world's great spiritual traditions, I venture to say the world would be a gentler, more understanding and forgiving place.

Eucalyptus therapy

eucalpyt forest 

This is a wet sclerophyll forest in Australia, and there is no such incidence here, but there are a few isolated copses of eucalypts around the place. One such group graces the nature strips lining the AYE somewhere before the Normanton Park exit. There is another small colony out at East Coast Park north of the lagoon. When I walk over there, I have to go up to them and say hello and stroke their smooth trunks. Don't ask me to which variety they belong, although my father might have known (he was a botanist).

Seeing them definitely makes me smile because they remind me of Australia and the bush. I guess you can tell when an expat has been too long away from "home" when they start doing crazy things like that. The funny thing is that most Australians in Australia wouldn't give their local gum tree a second thought. It's a bit like Singaporeans abroad seeing an orchid and feeling homesick, when they are so commonplace here we hardly notice them.

I read a book about eucalypts once, it was simply called "Eucalyptus" by Murray Bail and it deservedly won an award. Briefly, it concerns a man who would only consider as a suitor for his daughter a man who could name every single variety of eucalypt on his property (and he had them all!). A surprisingly beautiful and lyrical novel which you can read about here

Besides being known as the main food for one of Australia's best known icons, the humble eucalypt (or 10% of the many hundreds of species anyway)has the potential, as yet untapped, to be a developed as a source of chemical oils for a huge number of products. Already we have eucalypt soap, essential oil, candles, incense, rubs, etc. The wood is not bad also - and Australia has some of the most amazing wood turners in the world now. Read more if you like at this rather technical site.

Gum, anyone?

African Diary

African Diary 

It took me a couple of taxi rides to the office to read this so it's not a long book, but it's still a good read. It's worth it just to read about Bryson's fear of flying - which he has every right to fear after his experiences in a light aircraft!

It reminds me of my first trip to Pulau Tioman years ago when flights took off from a remote airfield in Seletar (can anything be remote in Singapore?). Anyway, we had to loiter around the airfield in the open (no departure lounge ...) for a while and then all 12 passengers climbed up the gangway and even I had to stoop to avoid giving my head a bump on the entrance door. Accustomed by then to long haul flights back to Australia, it was a rude shock when the cabin crew (well, maybe he was also the co-pilot)gave us the run-through of available amenities.

"Please fasten your seatbelts, place the earplugs into your ears (what??!!)and if you feel faint use the fan in front of you to cool yourself down." Or words to that effect.

I used both the earplugs - it was noisy! Conversation was impossible above the megadrone. Also it was a pretty rattan fan, so even though I did not faint or anything so dramatic, it was something to do for the 20 minutes we bobbed about in the clouds. Quite an experience but we had a safe, if bumpy, landing.

But I digress. Read African Diary not only for Bryson's laugh out loud humour (the taxi drivers gave me sidelong glances to check I was not a crazy axe-wielding psychopath), but for the humanitarian message. The profits of every book sold go to Care, "one of the world's largest private international humanitarian organizations, committed to helping families in poor communities improve their lives and achieve lasting victories over poverty."

Organisations that help communities help themselves instead of just giving a conscience-satisfying hand-out are worth supporting. They employ consultation with the people who need their assistance, they treat them like the human beings they are and not some anonymous poor starving statistic. I like that.

The Boy from Oz

The boy from Oz 

Forget the wolverine sideburns and hairy ears, just give me Jackman hirsutically challenged! On the other hand, some guys really do look better with a bit of fluff. Depp is best in his gypsy guise or as a tipsy pirate, and Viggo definitely cuts it as the unshaven rough and ready protector of hobbits.

Anyway, back to Hugh, currently starring as Liza Minelli's husband Peter Allen on Broadway in "The Boy from Oz" and on movie screens as Van Helsing, the formidable vampire slayer. No doubt he will pick up a Tony for his role in the Broadway play at the awards in a couple of days' time. Not only can he act, but also sing, dance, play the guitar and play rugby. That's the kind of actor they churn out in Oz, you see. Plus everyone likes to employ Aussie actors, says Mel Gibson (I think) because they are so laid back and don't act like primadonnas. Apparently, Jackman is now tipped to play the lead role in the film version of "The Da Vinci Code"

One of my favourite actresses is also Australian - the accomplished and beautiful Cate Blanchett. Even when she shaved her head for "Heaven", she was absolutely stunning. She made it recently to the list of the top ten most beautiful women. Not surprisingly though, Audrey Hepburn was top, her elegantly gamine face still graces advertisements for expensive jewellery and perfumes.