Season 2 Ep1 The Mysterious Deaths of the Spanish Dancers
TRAINING
I am in training to learn to speak to the animate world, as distinct from speaking about the animate world.
Or, as Bill Callahan sings: we could talk about the river…or we could just get in.
The training regime is agonisingly hard.
It requires being quiet.
And going outside and not doing much.
Paying attention.
Listening deeply.
Being present.
Rethinking how I use language.
DUMB
This is tough for any Western child of the 20th century. Especially one bought up to believe that if you couldn’t stub your toe on it, it either didn’t exist or wasn’t worth thinking about.
In my sculpture days in the 90’s I had an exhibition called The Dumb Object. I circle back to this every now and then because whatever meaning I was groping towards in that exhibition has still not been revealed – it is still teaching me about myself. At the time I think the title was meant satirically - maybe a humorous understanding that I was pushing shit uphill. The whole world, I reasoned, was in love with the moving image, and failing that, the still image, the picture. Reasonably-sized abstract sculpture seemed irrelevant, and as I poured all my whole being into the making of these things and identified myself with them in the egoic sense – I seemed irrelevant.
With hindsight, I suspect I was also hinting at the unexamined cultural hierarchy of spirit and matter: where matter comes off a poor second. Then there is the ‘dumb’ – surely, I was trying to give material form to that which had no voice? Here’s where the story loses a bit of gloss – the richness was embodied in the work, but a lot of this richness was not brought to conscious thought. There was some thoughtful commentary from local artists. I remember Peter Tyndall, no slouch when it comes to deep, meditative reflection telling me that I was ‘set’, that I had alighted on an idea rich enough to carry a whole art practise. I heard him, witness the fact that I can recall a conversation from three decades ago - but I also didn’t hear it. I was caught up in the modernist idea, that the artwork, having been wrenched into being, should speak for itself. This belief dovetailed nicely into the fact that I was geared for action and newness, not refection. I didn’t have the faith in myself to commit to that degree of depth.
Well, this essay is me boldly stating that I have developed the capacity to go deeper. No one can tell me that a new world isn’t being born.
I can feel it in myself.
THREE STORIES
Recently three bits of information have come to me. One from the business section of a paper I won’t name in case any left-leaning listeners decide to cancel me. The other from a podcast involving Merlin Sheldrake, a delightful nature spirit who is a radical ecologist and knowledgeable on all things fungal. The third….well the third is from too many sources to quantify.
FIRST
I learned, firstly, that in 2024 Tanya Plibersek, our Federal Minister for the Environment, is hosting a global environmental Nature Positive Summit. This is aimed at attracting new private investment in the Green zone. The article introduces an example of what this looks like in the form of British engineering and consulting firm ARUP. They are developing sustainable projects to city-sized scale in countries all over the world. Including restoring wetlands, using a form of organic engineering that sounded incredible.
SECOND
Then…in an online conversation, Merlin Sheldrake is asked about the practical application of fungal mycelium. He mentions a few companies, one called ECOVATIVE DESIGN. I discovered that they are producing wetland rafts – growing floating trays from myco-composite biomaterials. This beautiful idea encountered in a newspaper report takes on a living and breathing reality! There is an elegant symmetry in using live, growing organisms to restore natural ecosystems. Perth people of my era, grew up watching swamps we used to play in being steadily sucked dry to satisfy urban growth – our wetlands – still under threat - are the feeble remnants of what used to be widespread, connected and vibrant ecosystems. They are ripe for restorative work.
THIRD
So the third idea I want to introduce is more diffuse. The philosophers, scientists and writers I am listening to and reading don’t stay within the lines of their disciplines. They are engaging with the world in ways that are truly and deeply holistic - sending out tendrils of thought loaded with metaphors and language that curl into every aspect of the human and more-than-human world. They are curious. They are interdisciplinarian. They embrace quality over quantity and accept that there are things that can be experienced, but not measured. They are venturing into a realm that used to be – still is – the domain of the shaman, connecting to the animate species we share our world with. Merlin just calls it ‘good manners’. He believes that trying to find a shared language with other species is simply treating them with the respect owed to all that lives.
THIRD, THE NOVELIST
Charlotte McConaughy, an Australian born writer has written some compelling dramas: Once there Were Wolves and Migrations - fables of a future that is now. They are wonderful expressions of people’s connections to the natural world and each other. I love that she explores relationships that transgress and up-end seemingly unsurmountable differences between people. In Migrations, for example, professional fishermen and the conservation activists determined to stop them fishing, clash, and some find common ground. The violence of activism, the endlessly dire consequences of meeting force with force, is a theme threaded through both her novels.
THIRD THE ANIMAL COMMUNICATOR
I am currently drawn to Anna Breytenbach, a South African based woman who has developed her ability to communicate with other species. She studied to be in the corporate world, until she undertaking an animal tracking course that eventually took her life in a radically different direction. There is a fascinating video called The Animal Communicator that illustrates some of the work she now does.
THIRD THE SOIL FARMING RESTORATION MOB
Closer to home I am connected with a group of Regenerative types through a company called Soil Restoration Farming. Rachelle and Justin Armstrong have created a platform for people interested in supporting farmers and producers to change the way they farm. I had met Rachelle at different field days in WA over the last 5 years. We reconnected in what appeared to be a random manner – except, as Harry Bosch, my favourite homicide detective from LA and I both know, there are no coincidences.
SFR AND THE SHARING
The main offering from the SRF programme is a weekly morning zoom meeting with a mixed bunch of participants, many in training to be, or already, practitioners in some kind of regenerative coaching business. Every month there is a presentation from a thought leader. I was lucky enough to land on a Wednesday that saw a return visit from Darren Doherty, permaculture/broadacre landscape integrationalist from Castlemaine, Victoria. This month’s guest is Kevin Elmy, renowned Canadian cover cropping specialist, headhunted by a start up to work on a WA based soil carbon sequestration project.
SFR AND THE OFFERING
Rachelle and Justin run a highly curated network. Videos of all previous meetings are accessible online, contributions of biographies, readings, and online resources from the individuals in the community are shared. Rachelle contributes with foundational documents that define the aims of the group, all of them shaped, in turn, through her own training with business coaches and connections with groups like Syntropic World. She is always looking to broaden and shape the discussions, giving and integrating feedback to participants.
SFR AND THE VIBE
I felt welcomed by this group, and on my first Zoom meeting immediately saw the potential this group had to build community, formed in trust and shared values and interests. In February 2023, SRF is continuing a long-established working relationship with, farmer Christine Smith and Earthwhile, science communicators, two of the Western Australian regeneratives in the group, to organise a field day in Dandaragan, just north of Perth.
SFR AND THE FIELD DAY IN DANDARAGAN!
The headline scientist is Dr Christine Jones and some of the eastern-staters in the group have put up their hands to make the trek to WA. It seems that delicate and intricate patterns of relationship are forming across Australia’s agricultural land, percolating through the medium of human relationship. The day after Christine’s presentation, there will be an Expo where farmers and producers can mingle with people offering regenerative services and products.
SFR AND THE HUMAN APPROACH
Rachelle’s invitation to me to join the group is an illustration of a very human truth. When there is no manipulation in what is being offered, when someone is offering something because they value what you do, the response becomes that of gratitude and joy. There is a dollar price to pay to join this community, and I am happy to contribute money, figuring I am investing in a future I want to see happen, with people I want to be with.
It feels like a fair value exchange and it has come at a time when I am ready to re-evaluate my own contribution to the world.
THE POINT
It has taken me a bit of time to get to the point. Maybe I need to remind you I started with talking about ‘three bits of information’. All of the examples I have been talking about, amount to what Merlin Sheldrake calls: a maturation of ecological thinking.
THE OPPOSITE POINT
And how better to illustrate this ‘maturation of ecological thinking’ than by a story of its opposite….
Living in Geraldton, and writing stories for a magazine, I remember researching nudibranchs (not sure about pronunciation here – I have heard them as nubibranch and nudibranks.) These strange creatures used to wash up on the west beaches of Geraldton and die in their hundreds late in the long hot summers. This happened year after year, and it dawned on me one day that this lemming-like mass destruction was a thing worth investigating.
ONLY A MOTHER COULD LOVE THEM
These creatures wouldn’t make it on World Wild Fund for Nature poster. They were the size and colour of cow livers, and in their decomposing state could cause injury and death to dogs who ate or even sniffed them. Their presence aroused panic rather than curiosity – I cannot remember a single conversation that actually involved questions about the nature of these creatures and why they were dying in massive numbers on our beaches. Until the council put up signs warning dog walkers and naming these creatures, I knew them, incorrectly, as sea hares.
In search of information, I rang a local vet, and she told me that Nudibranchs were nicknamed ‘Spanish dancers’ because of their rippling grace in the water. This was unexpected news. She also shared with me the fact that they injured or killed dogs by crashing their respiratory systems but had no idea why they turned up in such numbers on our beaches.
HOW NOT TO ATTEMPT SPECIES INTERACTION
What happened? Did the conditions in the sea change and they couldn’t survive? Did they run out of the sponges they like to eat? Whatever the story, this species eventually gave up trying to insert themselves into human consciousness on Geraldton beaches. Years after I published the story it dawned on me that the nudibranchs had stopped appearing on our beaches – and it became fairly rare to encounter them over the summer months.
Knowing what I know now, I would advise Spanish Dancers that if dying on our beaches was an attempt to draw human attention to some kind of environmental shift catastrophic to their species, to not do it by killing dogs; in terms of interspecies connectedness, the dog/human nexus cannot be messed with.
I can only hope nudibranchs are still dancing their mysterious dances and flourishing somewhere else in the world and have not joined all the other unnoticed species slipping from view in this 6th mass extinction .
THE MORAL OF THE STORY
This story highlights a sad indifference and lack of curiosity about the beings who share this world with us. I use it to illustrate that we humans have come a long way since then. Or, perhaps, to illustrate that I’ve come a long way since then. My sense of curiosity and connection to the more-than-human world is expanding...and I am not alone.
IMAGE: IRENE GHANNAGE Separation Point, Geraldton
