Offerings to a Muse.
There are stories emerging from this Vigil, of synchronicity and co-incidence, of inspiration and of personal courage. Some have been about daring to venture forth and participate in ways not done before. Some people have tentatively offered to be focal locations, knowing this would alter their status in their local communities. Others have spoken of the knowing, of a quiet and sure faith which granted the strength to be on the beach that night.
We have needed to be brave to do this Vigil. It is not easy to take a stand for something when the majority of people around us seem happily oblivious to the urgency we feel.
The nature of a Vigil is also controversial for it carries a scent of the spiritual, of ritual and ceremony usually reserved for socially sanctioned events.
Thirdly, although the environmental movement has grown, it still bears that label of ‘greenie madness’ conveniently imposed upon it during more skeptical times.
A German philosopher offers some insight into human behavior which may help us to understand:
“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 – 1860)
People have shared their stories with me personally through phone calls and emails. I can understand why these are held precious within the self.
There is such a story told on Go Tv Geelong: Peter Cowden of Port Arlington stepped forward to save his town, and the Bay. Port Phillip Dredging Vigil,
Another story is from Craig Forster of Mt. Eliza.
[Background : The idea of the Vigil of Lights dropped into our lap - it emerged between Geraldine and me, over dinner early in November. We were both very upset that the approval had been granted to go ahead with the dredging of the bay. There had been too many years of community rallying, of walks, and talks, and information; of mandates and petitions. We shared the vision of Vigils along cliffs in England during WW2. A week or so later Soula (who shared our concern), responded passionately to the idea. She developed it further with me and we sent it to the Blue Wedges website. Andrew King boomeranged it, explaining that their role was with litigation, they did not have the time but they liked the idea and would welcome community support. Oh My …!
By mid December, I knew I needed to call on assistance and my daughter helped create a web site as a birthday gift for me. I started emailing, calling people and seeding the plan. The co-incidences, the offers of help, the ease with which so much fell into place, were quite uncanny. It was a fast learning curve but by Christmas, we had the message out into the wider community and it was enthusiastically supported by a large diversity of concerned folk.]
The 1st of January I received an email from Craig Forster, a local artist.
Dear Hilary,
Seems we have had the same thought.
I hope my letters give support.
Yours Craig
Attached was the copy of a letter he had sent out to editors, various newspapers, both local and City. It had not been published.
Dear Editor,
The waters of Port Phillip Bay and the beaches around it are as crisp and clean as they have ever been.
No longer are rivers and creeks filling it with sewerage and factory waste.
More than ever beach crowds are taking their rubbish with them.
Even the boatees are bringing their rubbish to shore rather than dumping it.
At the moment the bay is an exquisite blue, flocked with bird’s wings and canvas sails, its beaches mirage yellow, scattered with umbrellas and edged by busy bike paths and walking tracks.
It’s taken a long time for the people of Melbourne to learn respect for the Bay.
The Victorian Government should be commended for so carefully resuscitating the Bay.Enjoy it now because we are about to lose it.
Within a few months of dredging, starting within the Rip and at the mouth of the Yarra, Melbourne’s recreational heart will become a toxic, turgid swill, heavily infected with poisonous algae.
Its sands will be awash with silt and slime.
Anything left alive will be heavy with metals.
Its beaches will stink of dead fish, penguins, dolphins and seals.
Commerce and tourism will die with them.
The Victorian Government who have so carefully educated the people of Melbourne to care for our Bay are now about to destroy it.
The Federal Minister for Environment, The Hon. Peter Garrett, treacherously, served the coup de grace last week.
Legally only the Federal Court now stands in the way of this purposeless catastrophe.
So what are you, my reader, doing; hoping the dredger will sink, or the government will change its mind or the Port of Melbourne Authority will come to its senses?
No hope mate- only you, the real people of Melbourne can now protect the Bay.
Give some thought to what your personal and family response might be.
What you might do and what I suggest for a start, is meet your friends for an hour’s vigil on the beach every evening from 7.30pm to 8.30pm from now on.
Take a torch and a mirror, marvel at the return of reflecting, flickering answers as thousands of others join you from their vigil point around the Bay.
Make your light be seen that our Bay may be heard.
And take the kids so that they can at least say to their kids, that Mum and Dad tried.
Yours
Craig Forster
I replied with surprise at the coincidence. Craig understood.
Over a lifetime of initiative I have found ideas are sometimes appropriate to the times and are taken up by many both locally and worldwide immediately, others ahead of their time and for all the life they may have in the abstract cannot be made practical at the time.
They lie in abeyance until their time is ripe.
Your image and idea is obviously of its time and practical.
Where I got it from I have no idea but I can assure you the past month has been closed off to all but family. Life has been so full of family and so close to home that it could not have come from outside.
I assume it must have come through the magical ether.
Whatever, well done, your image and idea of a Bayside Vigil has certainly proved itself strong and resilient to this point.
I hope to see it reflected in the waters of Port Phillip Bay until the thought of dredging it is aborted.
All the best for the New Year and thank you.
Yours Craig
Craig’s deeply felt anguish for the Bay was further exemplified in his visions for a sculpture, entitled Vigil at Sea.
Today he writes:
The photo show a marquette for a sculpture called “The Vigil” 2.5 m
high in bronze to be placed off Pelican Pt Mt Eliza.
It is to commemorate the passion that women have felt for the Bay since “The Process” foundered off Pelican Pt in 1892 and a vigil was held for the drowned footballers from Mornington.Your Vigil has today sparked the same passion and sense of boding loss.
You may like to comment on my concept.
Yours Craig
This is perhaps one of the effects of living around this Bay. We on the land are embracing a large expanse of water. Beneath the surface is a Kingdom unto itself to which divers can testify.
It feels a very feminine Bay, in the shape of womb, and containing within it a rich gestating life. She is healing, nurturing, giving and supportive. And when humans sink beneath her waves, one senses she shares our sorrows.
Her child is the City of Melbourne.
I ‘see’ a writer, in another time, inspired: Stories of the Bay. Poetry and ballads have been written to her: photographers, artists and musicians have known and loved her. Collected works in offering to a Muse.
Now, we have surrounded and honored her with our Vigil of Lights.
She is to be protected. She is our Sanctuary.