To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour. (William Blake, Auguries of Innocence).
It seems to be so long ago now, another world lost in time, within which my heart and mind were at peace, like the gentle light of the break of the day in a calm world, where each day I found tranquillity, love, hope, and most importantly, I could drift off into the vast universe of my imagination to find contentment in the Worlds that opened their doors to my felicity.
I normally try to avoid writing about myself in these daily newsletters. However, a kind subscriber implored me to answer the question of how my mind can tap into unique creativity to write the novels published thus far. The answer may be found in that photograph of me when I was three, taken in the spring of 1972 at my grandparents’ home in Short Street, Southport, in ‘God’s-own-Country’ of Queensland. It had been an unusual beginning to my young life, as my grandparents, Hector and Noreen Spring, had to raise my brother and me. I was about one when I commenced living with them. The Great Drought of the 1960s had almost wiped out my paternal family’s sheep-grazing empire at Longreach, yet the greatest casualty of that climatic catastrophe was the destruction of my parents’ marriage. My father established a career as an industrial advocate in the Bowen Basin, and my mother enrolled at the University of Queensland, eventually graduating with a Bachelor of Arts and becoming a secondary school English teacher. Still, my maternal grandparents were relatively young in today’s standards, were financially stable, and Southport back then, before the merciless covetousness of developers, was Heaven on Earth. And every day, in my grandparents’ splendid gardens, I would get lost in my imagination and dream of worlds and lives so vividly that each day brought me great satisfaction. The irony of my life is that I was being raised as a Spring, yet my paternal surname was Springer, hence my pen name.
That tranquillity which I revelled in was shattered by 1979. My peaceful yet unique life was turned upside down and inside out when my late mother secured work as a secondary school teacher in Brisbane. Consequently, my older brother and I were uprooted from the serenity of our grandparents’ home and moved to Brisbane. It was complicated because being raised by my grandparents from almost an infant until I was almost seven meant that I felt like I was being separated from my parents when I had to live with one of my actual parents. Then, life’s cruel vicissitudes decided to crush my heart and mind. Cancer took my darling grandfather Hector’s life in May 1978, and to consolidate the trauma, for reasons that I cannot explain, I was taken up to Hector’s open casket to look at his lifeless body, and kiss those lifeless lips, which to this day I can still see the thin film of blood that held them together. And then in July 1979, my grandmother Noreen succumbed to her twenty-five years of battling breast cancer. After these numerous harrowing events, when one would think life could not get much crueller, the dark fog of major depression set in on my ten-year-old mind, a tragic legacy of going from Heaven to Hell at such a tender age. Ever since that time, I have ventured on in this world, burdened by that depression, hoping to find the peace depicted in the innocent eyes of that photograph. But alas! Poor Michael, I knew him well, yet I have never been able to find him again since then.
So, my writing is now my Narnia, opening doors in that universe of my imagination, hoping to once again find the little boy who could hold infinity in the palm of his hand and eternity in an hour.
This newsletter was originally published on my website.
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Not to stretch the connections too blatantly, but William Blake’s words, quoted at the outset of this essay, speak of an awareness of the natural world that is exquisitely intimate, profound, and, yes, spiritual too.
‘Tis a pity the current federal minister for the environment, a person who goes by the name of Murray Watt, doesn’t share the same degree of sensitivity for the natural world. Since his ascension to this critical position, less than a year ago, he has given assent to the Woodside North West Shelf Extension, extending licence until 2070, refused to upgrade the status of the Maugean Skate from Endangered to Critically Endangered, denied an emergency application under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act to stop development of Victoria Park/Barrambin for the 2032 Olympics, on the grounds that the area was not under “serious and immediate threat,” and most recently, approved the clearing of nearly 3,000 hectares of tropical savanna in the Northern Territory for agriculture without a full federal assessment, declaring it “not a controlled action”.
The Environment Centre of the NT (ECNT) said the decision “effectively green lights the destruction of likely habitat for 13 threatened species, including Gouldian finches, freshwater sawfish, pig-nosed turtles, red goshawks and ghost bats”.
That decision, published by the federal environment department last Wednesday, coincided with Watt announcing that the US mining company Alcoa will receive a national interest exemption to continue clearing for its bauxite mining operations in Western Australia’s northern jarrah forest.
Given that the man’s tertiary education equipped him with Bachelor degrees in Law and Commerce, it’s hard not to draw the conclusion that he is fundamentally ignorant when it comes to matters of importance in relation to environmental preservation.
Business comes first in Watt’s worldview, and if fish, birds, reptiles, mammals, insects, along with rare, threatened and endangered flora vanish, become extinct, disappear, then so be it. No doubt the man sleeps well at night, no nightmares or visions of horror as to what he is carrying the responsibility for in terms of the destruction of this country’s landscapes along with their resident natural inhabitants.
This is what a Trojan Horse looks like; the empowering of a man with putative responsibility for environmental protection, when in reality his agenda is anything but.
A pox on him, most sincerely, and may he die a horrible death.
Yes, have to admit a LOT of sympathy for Canguro as to that post.