THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM
We could enter many competitions with our produce, however, we don’t. We have much bigger “fish to fry.” For years, globally, we have been fighting for the future of our forests, clean air, water, and soil. We were instrumental in stopping a contaminated waste dump from being placed at the entrance to the town in which we live. It was to be the size of four football ovals, two stories high.
We continue to fight the “good” fight. There is so much to do. It sometimes feels like a
“never-ending story” and is overwhelming, to say the least. However, we receive unlimited spiritual power from above and can continue our journey. When we started farming biodynamically, we were told that what we were trying to do was “impossible.” One farmer said our land would be “barren in ten years.”
The opposite is the case. Boraning is teeming with life. The animals live naturally, grazing on green grass during Autumn, Winter, and Spring. When the summer rolls in, the pastures turn brown, and the cattle, sheep, and horses still look healthy and in good condition. Between autumn and winter, sometimes the animals are fed hay to sustain them until the rain comes.
William, our son Vincent, with whom we farm the land, and I live as a ‘community.’ Our passion for biodynamic agriculture goes back around 36 years. Passion and love for making the difference we can make by having clean air, water, soil, and food from the land we are responsible for. It is also the key to being a “master of health.”
PASSION FOR NATURE
Also, a deep love of nature, a “burning fire” inside to protect the land and forests for the future of humanity, has been a powerful force to help us keep going. Over the years, planting thousands of trees, not only for beauty but also to lower the saline water table in the soil, made significant changes to the landscape, as seen in a video clip of a song I wrote called When We Were Young.
It was filmed over thirty years ago. You can see me standing on salt-scalded land in this video. In this same place all these years later, you can see and experience a forest of trees. William’s influence in planting ‘Salt-tolerant poplars’ from the Euphrates River, Australian wattles, and gums led to a situation where the bare salt scalds have healed. Now, plants and trees in these areas grow vibrantly. Many people who have visited Boraning have described it as “paradise on earth,” which is how William, Vincent, and I feel about the land upon which we are privileged to live.
Around the time I wrote this song, we were deeply concerned with the future of whales on the earth. I wrote the song “A Whale for the Killing” after experiencing what is known as “Dolphin Dreaming.” William and I were involved with this conscious meditation technique after we married. This led to an experience that brought the “knowing” of the whale singing this song. Sound cosmic? Sure is.
Later, my song was played for Olivia Newton-John to inspire her to write her own song for a documentary about whales made by Greenpeace called The Last Whale. Part of our video clip was used, and the song was also in this film. This documentary was screened worldwide to secure votes for a whale sanctuary in Antarctica. The creation of the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary won by one vote.
Regarding our love and passion for caring for nature and our environment, we have also been very active on many fronts. For years we travelled back and forth to the south of our state to the old-growth Karri forests of Western Australia. A Time Magazine article described this forest as an “environmental hotspot for the world.” It contains over one thousand eight hundred species of plants and animals, some rare and endangered.
After being in many Perth protests to save these forests and part of the first blockade in these forests to stop the logging, I was asked to write a song to save a particular area zoned for clear-felling. With such a deep understanding of the dangerous plight of these forests in my home state, the song flowed out of me. I called that song, What is Happening to Our Forests?
We also made a video clip to go with it from footage taken during the campaign, which showed the beauty and destruction in the forests. The video clip has a timeless message that applies today, as forests, like the Amazon, are being destroyed everywhere.
You can see the video clip here below:
(Noman’s Land was also written at that time for the forests, and has now been made into a “freedom fighter’s” version)