Monday 15/4/02. 5.30 pm. Melbourne ….

Charlton (for petrol & a hamburger & coffee

($6.00) from Maria at Lous) …. Underbool (for 3 stubbies) & thats where I had a problem because when I went
to start the van I couldnt turn the key & had to ask at the garage for help which ended up costing $10 while I
drank one of the stubbies in the pub. In the end (with the help of tools & the input of several people including a
boy mechanic & an old man who was “good at tinkering with things”) they unjammed the starter lock by the
key wiggling method. To fix it up properly would require a new lock & a couple of days waiting for it to arrive.
Drove on to Murrayville for another couple of stubbies (this may be the way) & once again couldnt turn the key
at first but was more persistent & am hoping Ive found the spot Ive got to pull it back to to make it turn. Now
Im 5ks back at Danyo reserve where I nearly always stop on this road.

Im a drover
Ill die riding

Im riding across the saltbush plain

towards the distant sun
when the sun goes down
and the red moon shines
Ill still be riding on

Im a drover
my camp gear is rattling

Im heading for Port Kenny on the western side of the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia. It will take some days
if Im able to start the car. A few weeks ago I bought 4 1: 250000 map sheets that cover the entire peninsula.
Each map covers approximately an area of 120ks X 150ks. I intend to spend most of my time on the one called
“Elliston”. (Im listening to the alarm chirrup of a willie wagtail).

1
I would like to forget the world (the israeli army has surrounded the birthplace of the great prophet & shot the
nose off the statue of his mother; somewhere underwater there is a submarine named after him (Corpus Christi)
gliding through the oceans silently to evade detection by the ruskies : it has one hundred missiles each armed
with three nuclear warheads, enough to end civilization; our alliance (of anglos to protect modernity) has
chosen to keep its prisoners in wire cages; israeli tank crews say their prayers before demolishing palestinian
hovels; palestinian girls blow themselves up in desperation to kill israeli civilians; meanwhile Melbourne city is
surrounded by more cranes building huge apartment towers than Ive seen since before the last major recession;
(Im drinking a stubby of Southwark Old Stout) ( the sun has dipped below the horizon & there are many
beautiful bird calls) & I think our civilization is doomed.) On the other hand I am leaving my domestic affairs in
about as good a shape as could be expected considering the circumstances (16/5/02. But now things are in
disarray again) though I wish Ben would check the level of the engine oil & service his car now & again.
(15/5/02. Last night it was broken into while in the drive of the Ivanhoe house by having the drivers door
jemmied. An attempt was made to rip out the stereo/radio.) (Im writing fast before its dark & I havent eaten
yet). H is back at work today after a two week holiday. The only argument we had was when I tried to convince
her that she should not visit Vi for one day a week (saturdays) so that we could spend the entire day together for
walking about the city. I won. Last saturday Dan had promised hed relieve her but when she rang in the evening
to find out how Vi was it turned out he had not bothered. So it goes. He had probably spent the day sleeping &
recovering from playing pool & watching videos with Ben over the previous night. Kate is fine. (I had lunch
with her at Threshermans in Carlton yesterday). She was looking forward to her first teaching round starting
today. I also saw Vi at the hospital for only the second time since shes been there. Shed had a blood transfusion
earlier in the day. It means shes decided that life is worth living even though deaf & bedridden.

once
a man died
lost in the desert

some
died in forests
some
lost at sea

now
men die in
hospitals

It could be that hers is lengthened by Hs being shortened. The quality of her life may be directly or inversely
related to the quality of Hs life. The great men have always preached that fulfilment comes from service to
others so if we are to believe them it could be a win-win situation (a term most likely invented by salesmen) but
they were probably influenced by the example of mothers that had reared them & of admiring females that
easily believed their spiel. (Gautama deserted his wife & child & the nazarene deserted his mother). It may be
that there are real choices to be made : more life for me is less for the other (Dostoyevski analyses the moral
dimensions of the problem in the novel ‘Crime and Punishment’). (I can see a very thin new moon between the
native pines & its time for a feed).

Tuesday 16/4/02. 7.50 am. I would like to leave these issues behind & do some
substantial walking when I get to the Eyre Peninsula. Thats why Im writing about them now. Last year after I
finished the entries for the story ‘13/8/01 – 25/8/01’ where the last entry was written at a beach a bit east of
Cactus Beach (I had mistakenly called it Cactus Beach) on the western side of the peninsula I continued on for
another 3 or 4 days driving along the coast south to Port Lincoln then north to Port Augusta. Its a great coast,
particularly the western side & Im itching to get to know it better. Its an example of desert meeting ocean, the
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exact opposite to the tourist mecca in north Queensland, Cape Tribulation, that some of my readers may know,
where jungle comes down to beach. Continuing on from where I left off yesterday : it may be that Hs efforts
contribute to Vis will to live & encourage her to accept medical procedures that prolong it. Then Vi makes H
miserable by complaining what a lousy life shes got. The increase of one is the diminishing of the other. No one
can give themselves credits for choosing a win-win outcome as any sensible person would do that. But if you
choose to increase yourself perhaps you should do it accepting the responsibility of decreasing another & if you
decide to help someone else only accept credit for the choice if it has decreased you. Another thing that has
been bothering me is a traditional hasidic legend/story that was told to me by Alec Drummond at the Make It
Up Club a couple of weeks ago. “There are always 12 Tzadikim (Righteous People) on earth – only 12. They
maintain creation through their righteousness. If ever there’s less than 12, creation will end.” Thats how Alec
told it & he wrote it down too. It bothers me because I smell a con. Linguistic considerations alone make me
suspicious. Why 12? The thing about numbers is that we have practiced the actions they represent. Numbers
constitute exact synchronisations by people across cultures since the most ancient times, since the beginning of
money economies in fact. Further refinements have led to mathematics which is a major component of modern
scientific technology. So it is legitimate to ask why not 13 or 11 or 7 or 3 Tzadikim? (28/4/02. The same
consideration applies to the 144000, or whatever it is, that the jehovas witnesses claim is the number that will be
saved). However we havent practiced at recognising righteousness nearly as much. What is practiced as good in
one culture can be seen to be very,very bad in another (worth reading Alfonso Lingis on the sexual practices of
the Sambia tribe in new guinea on this). And we havent practiced at all at recognising a “Tzadikim” since if
there are only 12 we are not going to have met one. There are different orders of language side by side here & I
suspect that what is vague or meaningless is meant to gain credibility by being placed next to what is exact. Its a
standard trick. & since we cannot know the Tzadikim ourselves I bet our knowledge of them comes from
middlemen wearing long beards (to denote seniority, access to antiquity, & that they are male) & outlandish
clothes (maybe all black, or purple vestments, or capes (but in india they sometimes wear nappies to show how
emaciated their bodies are from ascetic & yogic practices) & strange head gear. Every conman knows that the
outfit is 90% of the act. Yet I see humble depressed looking women wheeling their mothers about in
supermarkets or with a retarded son in tow (& I think this guy is in his 50s & his mother is in her 70s & they
live in a housing commission flat & shes had him in tow all her adult life & hes whining & carrying on & not at
all grateful) dressed drably & with no claims to any kind of special knowledge & no one to listen to their story.
Perhaps creation depends on the existence of very many such women in our suburbs rather than the very few
possessors of special righteousness. In spite of my suspicions & having cast doubts on the role of cosmic
brokers I have to admit that I take up the offer of the great teacher, jesus of nazareth, that if we ask in his name
he will intercede on our behalf. I have asked & I hold him to his promise – otherwise what he said isnt true.
Alec wrote down another story that I find acceptable. ““An unlearned Jew wanted to pray but didn’t know the
prayers. So he recited the Hebrew alphabet & said “Hashem (“Lord”) you put the letters in the right order.””
This is a bit like the palestinian whose ancestral home is being bulldozed & as he walks away he gestures at the
sky & calls out “Allah Akbar”. Time for the road : it will be interesting to see if I can start the car …. 3.35. I
always get to this spot at Worlds End after drinking 3 stubbies that I buy at Morgan (2 Southwark Bitter & 1
Coopers Stout). The first rise I go over on the Morgan-Burra road that gives a view of the Lofty Ranges in the
distance gives me a huge lift. I turn left off the road into an easy to miss lane about 18ks this side of Burra. I am
being accurate for the benefit of Lance Morton who knows the area & gave H a $65 cut on a pair of Naot brand
shoes that are the most comfortable shes worn. This spot is not to be confused with the Burra gorge spot which
is off the Eudunda road closer to Burra. The lane is about 2 ks long & its completely private here except for the
one night the kangaroo shooters were working when I was here with Saulius Varnas. (there are a lot of flies
today but). At Morgan I got into an argument with some blokes in the pub who were complaining about the
water rights agreement just signed between SA, Vic & NSW. They were ropeable & just loved getting stuck into
me as they picked me for a Victorian straight away. I wasnt sure how tongue-in-cheek they were. Then I had
trouble starting the van to leave. Im in shorts on a beautiful arvo. I expect its more likely to be too hot than too
cold in the coming weeks. I am driving the van on its last trip. When I get back Im getting a new one. Everyone
says it should be a 4x4 (20/5/02. But today I bought a short wheel base Toyota Hiace tradesmans van for
3
$30000 with the trade-in). My next major disagreement with H will be when I try to talk her into going away on
a holiday with me. We are very experienced at them & do them well. They have been a central activity on which
weve hung our togetherness. I would like to go away to distant parts of the country for months at a time in
winter. A 4 or 5 week trip would also give us some scope to explore new places & if I were in her situation Id
think it was a reasonable compromise. But at the very least we should see our way clear to go away for 2 weeks
at a time. Vi must take some responsibility for the choice she makes to accept blood transfusions. If we do not
accept responsibility for our choices we devalue our capacity to make them. For mine, the capacity to choose is
integral to my dignity (a christian sect has a similar attitude to blood transfusions as I do; perhaps they are the
jehovas witnesses; must find out their reasons). I understand that when blood supply decreases the diminished
oxygen level in the brain may cloud judgement. There is a program in every cell that wants it to survive at any
cost. Cells survive & multiply in a culture in a test tube if given the chance. I am trying to clarify my attitudes
while possessed of a clear mind in the hope that the blind programming of the cells doesnt override my
judgement in such a circumstance. Also I think we should not overestimate our responsibility for others. We are
very small. If we take on tasks which are too large we may become so engrossed in our failure to achieve them
that we become incapable of the small things more suited to our abilities. Some may attempt large tasks
because they take themselves too seriously. If there is a god let him have his way.

a tombstone on a cliff
says
here lies a man
crushed by a wave

a cairn in the desert

says
this man
was betrayed by the sun

in a cemetery
in a suburb there is
a large tombstone
with the words:

here lies the body

of a dearly departed and
distinguished citizen
deeply mourned by his
loving wife, children
and grieving relatives

may his soul

rest in peace

Wednesday 17/4/02. I woke before the first bird calls into a brief moment of ecstatic
thoughtlessness. Then I thought that I am almost never free of thought & that one day, when all these strings of
chatter are completed, I will achieve a more permanent stillness. I heard the first truck go by on the highway 2
ks away. I felt grateful to be in mallee scrub away from the city. The first birds to call are magpies & the very
numerous crows. You overlook a vast plain eastwards from here so they see the pre-dawn glow long before
sunrise. As the large orb of a red sun made its appearance the galahs, which are the dominant bird in the area,
joined in. Its 8.10 & Ive had breakfast (just had a crap). It was quite brisk early & looks like a good day coming
up. As usual Ive brought a few books in case of rainy weather which on the Eyre Peninsula is not very likely. Im
4
about a quarter into the ‘Pensees’ of Blaise Pascal. Ive also started ‘The Battle for God – Fundamentalism in
Judaism, Christianity and Islam’ by Karen Armstrong. Ive just finished her ‘A History of God’ & brought it in
case I want to refer to it. The other books Ive read by her in the last couple of weeks are the ones on muhammad
& buddah. ‘The History of God’ is described as a world wide best seller & has been translated into 30
languages. Her qualifications are that she was a nun for 7 years an experience she has described in another best
seller called ‘Through the Narrow Gate’. In 1999 she received the Muslim Public Affairs Council Media Award.
She is a teacher at the Leo Baeck College for the Study of Judaism. Her sister is a buddhist. (20/5/02. Yesterday
I saw the Dalai Lama lecturing on a giant screen outside the tennis centre. There was no room inside as it was
packed.) I find her books very informative (did you know that in lithuania there were processions in honour of
Sabbatai Sevi (Shabbetai Zevi)? & Im going to find out more about Jacob Frank (1726 – 95) if only because she
describes him as “the most frightening figure in the entire history of Judaism”. (I had heard of Frankism only in
connection with the polish/lithuanian/and according to Simon Schama maybe somewhat jewish poet Adomas
Mickevicius).(20/5/02. Before going to the tennis centre I read the ‘Encyclopaedia Judaica’ entry on Frankism
at the state library where I also caught up with Frank Lovece, Brian Maclure, Walter Struve & others.) The fact
is Ive been told Im a religious writer myself so Im interested to find out what it is that Im being accused of.
Much as Ive enjoyed the historical detail I find her interpretation of the place of the ‘mystical’
experience in our lives to be banal & at the service of orthodoxy as you would expect from someone who is
paid to teach at a religious institute. Her point of view is couched in cartesian dualisms. She makes a facile
distinction between ‘mythos’ & ‘logos’ placing religious meanings in the first & the world of practical affairs in
the second. Underpinning the initial structure is an uncritical acceptance of the inside/outside paradigm of the
personality. She locates the experiences of the mystics deep in interiority where they are safe from doing harm
& where they reside in similar territory to the creatures of psychoanalysis. She uses words such as unconscious,
subconscious, psyche as if it is obvious what they mean without showing any awareness of how they serve their
owners in the real world. The main practical effect of her theology is to endorse the roles of the church
hierarchies who have to filter & structure the insights of the mystics much as shrinks guide their patients to self
awareness by helping them confront the denizens of their subconscious. The end result, & I dont think she
intends it, is to trivialize religious experience. The problem with cartesian dualisms is not that they are being
undermined by people like Derrida & Wittgenstein but that they are already dead in the water. The philosophers
come after the event trying to find a language for what has already happened. People in the street still use the
language of doubles for want of replacement terms but their actions show they know its meaningless. For the
record I do not consider myself to be a religious writer. I write about language. If someone said I was a
truthsayer – that would be something ! …6.00pm. I am at Port Germein at a table overlooking the beach & pier.
The pier is 1½ ks long & was once the longest in australia according to the info board. When you walk out to
the end you can hear the crowing of roosters back in the town. Sound carries well over water. Ive spent the bulk
of a hot day mucking about in Port Pirie which has little to recommend it except youve got to go there for
services. I walked up & down the main st enough times for people to be saying hullo to me. First I went to the
Nissan dealer who suggested I get a new key cut to see if the sharper edge fixed the problem. That cost $5 &
didnt work. The locksmith sent me back to the dealer. To order a barrel in from Melbourne would have taken till
next week if one was available. It would have cost hundreds of dollars. Then I went to the R.A.A. garage &
after much toing & froing we located two second hand ones at a wreckers. One had a key but would have been
hard to attach to the van as it was a different model, the other was OK but had no key. Thats the one we got &
took it back to the same locksmith to disassemble so as to cut a key for it. All this took over 5 hours & cost
$105. Later I realized that all I had needed to get done was to get the R.A.A. people to break the locking
mechanism as Im getting rid of the van after the trip. No-one had thought to suggest it. Anyway I am here at
what I consider to be home territory. Its a still evening. Im drinking a stubby of Coopers Sparkling. An Italian
family are returning from fishing on the pier. One of them is pulling a special trolley designed for fishing gear
& they are talking very loudly. Dogs are barking. Pigeons cooing. Later Ill ring H. Tonight Ill be sleeping by the
waters of Spencer Gulf (about 2ks to the north).

they watch the white birds stoop through mist and spray
5
 beautiful as a dream

it makes them think that

they are near the sea

they wait
to soak their withered hands
in salty water
once again

Thursday 18/4/02. 2.50 pm. Port Kenny. Forgot to mention

yesterday that there is a pub in the main strip of Port Pirie advertising bed & “continental breakfast” at
$25/night. That gives you an idea how much in demand it is with travellers. Got through to H last night with the
first effort. Everything is OK & Vis mood has improved. That must be the effect of the blood transfusion &
what I presume is the extra supply of oxygen to the brain. Kate rang to say that in her first lesson on the
teaching round which was with a year 7 group they ran riot. Thatll learn her. I had thought she was
overconfident when I saw her at Threshermans last week. H read Joes first effort at an essay as a tertiary
humanities student & said it was pretty slick. I reckon humanities might suit him : hes got the gift of the gab. I
got up early this morning (6.30) & drove to the pier for breakfast ( & the toilet (17/5/02. My initials were still
on the inside of the door.)). Killed a cockroach in the back of the car. Do you remember, honey, the guy on the
bicycle with a little white dog that we got into conversation with on the pier a few years back? He had it in for
blackfellas, immigrants (etc.) We thought he was pretty smart but a lonely person. I always see him when Im
here but dont give him the opportunity to strike up a conversation. Anyway he remarked that he hadnt seen me
for a few months which shows hes been noticing. It turns out hes just bought a brand new VW van. So much for
looking poor! He paid $37000 & its a long wheel base (40cms longer) tradesmans van. He got a diesel as all his
previous vehicles have been diesels & he reckons nothing goes wrong with the engines. He was very pleasant &
came back with the brochure manual which Ive kept. There is a version of the van for a few thou extra that is
called a ‘syncro’ where there is a diff to the back wheels so that if the front ones are losing grip the back ones
get automatically engaged. Sounds pretty good : maybe its what we should get. He says its about the same size
inside as the Urvan. I keep getting good reports on them. This morning I shopped up in Port Augusta (9/5/02.
Worlds End. Where the mayor (a woman) who is trying to prevent 15 children in the detention centre from
attending local schools has described the children of detainees as “appalling and abhorrent” but the mayor of the
neighbouring city of Whyalla, also a woman, has rejected the description “at the risk of upsetting people”)
(During last years election campaign the mayor of Port Lincoln (major city of the Eyre Peninsula) whose
surname suggests he is of croatian or serbian background said that if “illegals” were threatening to jump
overboard they should be told to go ahead & left to drown.) before driving the 330 or so ks to here along H1
through Iron Knob, Kimba & Wudinna. I decided to start here because I had stopped for a meal in the Venus
Bay Conservation Reserve when I came through last year & had remembered it as a place where you might get
shade. The park borders about 13 ks of the northern part of the bay (not be be confused with Venus Bay in
Victoria; & there is a town called Venus Bay here too, on the southern side.) But when I checked it out today I
realized none of the scrub was tall enough to get the van under. Its been hot all day with a northerly blowing &
Im fully stocked up with food. Luckily a gusty cool change has just come through. I parked the van along one of
the walls of a shed at the pier so that at least a bit of it was out of the sun. There are several sheds & water tanks
& motors start up & go off on automatic. Strangely theres no toilet : I had to go for a crap & wasnt going to
pack up & drive to the pub or garage to look for one, so I used the old method of lifting up the only sizeable
piece of loose concrete I could find in the lea of a shed (but youre visible here from almost every direction; thats
the thing about flat country) & discovered that someone else had done the same. Thereve been a few people
walk to the end of the pier but most of the time theres no one & it would be a good place to spend the night
except for the noise of the motors. Also Ive just noticed there are a couple of lights : so its out. Ill camp in the
conservation park at a spot I sussed out. Theres a bit of a track going north through the scrub which might be
6
nice to walk along tomorrow. The track that goes along the coast (for 13 ks) is very corrugated. There are lots of
birds on the shore. Some pelicans are watching to see if Im the sort of guy who fillets fish & a bunch of seagulls
perched over me on electric wires are also interested. There are ducks on the shore (australasian teal) but the
most noticeable birds for me are the banded stilts (Himantopus himantopus) as I dont see them often. I noticed
they were numerous when I was driving into Port Augusta too. You cant escape knowing that the Western
Hawks won the local premiership in 2001. Its painted up in blue & yellow all over the place including on the
surface of the highway. There is a pub, garage, post office/general store in town & Im about to find out if theres
also a public toilet before going to my spot for the night in the park. Might get another stubby also. I know
from long experience that when you get into country you dont understand the best way to start is by getting
drunk. It dawned on me after awhile that there are no rivers this side of Port Augusta & now that I think of it I
never even crossed a creek. Its limestone country. (Gintas told me the other day that he knows this area from his
& Venetas thorough exploration of australias southern coastline that they did over 5 days (Melbourne – Perth) in
his 4x4 Range Rover during summer.) ….. Stopped at the store to see if there was a suitable local card to send
to Tom Fryer as he had requested. Sent him the one of the 3 koalas on a lush green lawn because there wouldnt
be a koala within 1000 ks of here & I never saw any green grass between here & Port Augusta neither & they
live up in trees. Tom (who works for the post) was probably expecting an example of mail-art from me but,
mate, Ive quit the genre. I quit a year ago, long before september 11 & tell aussie post I never done it. I never
flue them planes. It woznt me. I no nuffin. I quit because them holding back me mail was makin me paranoid &
because I lost interest & wanted to concentrate on plain old fashioned writing. & events subsequent to sept.11,
especially the spate of letters with white powders in em, confirmed me in my decision. Times arent right for
mail-art. Thats one art form that has had its useby date. (15/5/02. a …..zz please take note.) Pass that on to your
bosses & the govt. & asio & the cia & mossad & chekka & George Bush & anyone else whats listenin. I tell you
Im innocent. Totally innocent! (& Ive never been inside the rent-a-bomb place in Clarendon st Sth. Melb.
neither) (& I aint a member of al Qaeda & I havent even read Arabian Nites).

and so you wander like a dream

along the shores of other minds
where youthful hopes come rolling in
to break in froth against the rocks
the beach is littered with remains
of ill-conceived forgotten plans

swirling currents of the deep

give birth to tender fragile life
on the water comes a seed
and sends down roots into the sand

you notice then the seagulls swoop

on a bleached and tattered scrap
and suddenly the air is filled
with screams of hunger and of hate

Friday 19/4/02. I was kidding about getting drunk but perhaps I should have as I still
feel out of kilter. I slept very little. For a start I hadnt realized how close I was to the highway. Noise carries in
flat country; you hear an approaching truck miles away. Then there was the sheet lightning which was so bright
I had to keep my eyes shut from getting blinded. Its interesting how muted the thunder is with this kind of
event, just low growling & rumbling, no obvious connection to the flashes. There were a few showers which
made me keep thinking of some tyre marks I saw that show the dirt can turn soft in spite of the patches of
limestone. I doubt if Ill be able to find shade today. It was a mistake to carry so much food. I cant leave the car
shut out in the open & walk away for half a day. The couple of showers has made the moss turn greenish by
7
morning. Before it wasnt visible at all. Things change suddenly here. Before dawn I drove to the shore track & a
few ks to the west for breakfast where Im parked now (8.00). The sun has broken through the cloud & its
already quite warm. But the main thing that kept me on edge during the night was a question I was grappling
with. The problem was posed a few weeks ago by Tom Fryer. Hes been doing it hard & I had said to him that he
should hold it together for the sake of his music. His response was: “Why?” I said Id try to answer it on the trip.
Ive been turning it over & the answer, if there is one, keeps getting more complicated or receding. I want to give
it a go but I dont want to spend half the trip doing it; and thats how big its getting. Last night it occurred to me
that the way to start would be to first examine what it is that we do when we ask “how?” & “why?”: the
different anthropologies of the two similar looking words. It was Wittensteins unique genius to recognize that
the grammatical similarity of words can mask completely differing usages. So I tossed & turned trying to tease
out the underlying structure of each. Ill give a report later. Right now Ill see how far this track takes me ….
11.20. Im about 15ks further around the bay at the narrow neck separating it from the southern ocean that goes
on to Point Weyland. (Youre right Gintai, the sign says you cant camp here). Ive just had a dip in the nuddy by
way of a long overdue wash & even brushed me teeth. A couple of 4x4s have rolled up. I wouldnt have been
naked if I had thought it was likely. Didnt enjoy some parts of the track as you cant avoid driving over brick
sized shattered limestone which I imagine could cut through a tyre. Point Weyland is the point you see across
the mouth of the bay from Venus Bay township. You come to the edge of the cliff facing the southern ocean
with surprising abruptness & it looks just like the fotos you see of the cliff bordering the southern edge of the
Nullabor Plain. Took a foto of a sign with a picture of a man falling headlong down the cliff under an
exclamation mark. Might as well have a go at the words.
Of the two ‘how’ is the easier one. If someone asks me what am I doing when I try to
answer it I know that my initial move is to gesture, draw lines in the air, make shapes with fists or fingers. I say
its like this & then like this & if you stand next to me lets do it together & youll get it (flaying arms for
swimming; swinging motion for golf). I might go on to draw diagrams & instructions on a piece of paper.
Science is an elaboration of the initial gestures. Its task is to answer the question “how?” A feature of the
answers is that we know when its satisfactorily completed which happens when the moves of the person asking
the question exactly reproduce the moves of the person giving the answer. They have come to an agreement. I
am not uninterested in science & am impressed by what has been achieved (but lately I feel only disgust) but
my overwhelming, life long I suppose, preoccupation is with the question : “Why?” Its my special condition,
misery, illness or punishment. So when you asked the question, Tom, with a particular emphasis, I recognized a
shared affliction. Philosophers claim that the discipline that tries to answer it is ethics. It came to me as quite a
surprise last night to realize that when I try to answer it I have no urge at all to gesture, draw pictures or make
any of the moves I do when answering the other. It made me realize (I can see a shingleback lizard) how
radically different they are from one another both in the asking of & the answering. These differences can be
highlighted by looking at the situation of children saying why to adults. Its a definite stage in the development
of some kids & can be aggravating because when you give an answer they respond to it by saying why again.
You shouldnt smoke. Why not? Because it will make you sick. Why should I care? Because you might die. Why
worry, Ill die anyway (etc. etc.) Dont resort to god in your answer because the next question will be tougher –
who is god? If you say because god loves you then youve answered one question with two because love is just
as hard to pin down. There is no standing side by side, synchronizing moves. The child looks up at the adult,
teacher or father, or some other authority. You look down. Its significant that in these situations youll often hear
the sentence : “Who said so?” If it goes on & on youll probably be forced to answer with things like : I say so;
thats how it is; because I hold the purse strings; because Im bigger; because Im older than you; because I just
know; because Im the father (two more 4x4s have gone by; theyre going through the gate to the point about 6 ks
further). Some children will accept the first answer they get & go on to be adults who will be satisfied with
answers that are laughably silly as long as they come from a teacher, an official, expert, or churchman. Others
continue with the pestiferous questions & you realize after a while what is at stake is your authority. Some of
these may grow up to be adults who are never satisfied & keep on asking till there is no authority left standing. I
think youll agree, Tom, that it is easier to be the first kind of person. The way we ask “Why?” & the way we

8
offer or accept an answer are processes by which we locate ourselves, or nominate our position in an hierarchy
– of the owners of meanings. Ill try to answer your question another day.
4.30. Tyringa Beach. As the crow flies its about 18 ks from where I was but Ive done 50.
The side of the van is 3 steps from the edge of a cliff of about 10 metres with a vertical drop down to jagged
rocks over which the water is churning. It will be great to sleep to tonight. The front of it is facing south west
into a stiff breeze & I would think that if you projected a line forward from it over the southern ocean it would
miss antarctica & not hit land again till it hit the coast of california. I came on a track that branches one north
west & the other south east along the cliff top. The car is on a platform of flat limestone. The cliff edges are
undercut by up to several metres so it pays not to stand on the very edge. But Im not a sleepwalker. Fortunately
the breeze is directly off the sea so its mild. There isnt a bush over 3 feet as far as the eye can see in either
direction. The limestone is inclined to be whitish & glary but there is a beautiful beach nearby where the rocks
along the waters edge are of rusty granite which is the underlying strata. I know that no amount of description
will enable you to imagine it unless youve been to one of these beaches yourself.

I lie in the van

on the borders of sleep
and as the shell of my life falls away
breached by the steady rhythm
of the pounding sea
I surrender to the night

the sea grows louder

till its roaring mingles with my dreams
and on the wave of sleep
I am carried to a shoreline

where I know
it has always been so
that on such a night
I will be taken
back to the sea

Saturday 20/4/02. The night was cradled by the sound of churning water. There were no
pre-dawn bird calls, not even the tiniest chirrup.

our mind is water

our thoughts fish
some larger, some smaller
more brilliant
some tiny silver fish

in a garden of
moss covered rocks, gravel
secret caves, floating fronds

our intelligence is the fish bowl

8.08 (7.38 SA time). The cloud was thick enough for the sunrise to be obscured for the
first time on the trip. It is very rare for there to be no bird calls in the morning. Even in Miller st. on the edge of
the city you get a variety (seagulls, white plumed honeyeaters, sparrows, pigeons, magpies & others). I am in
9
the habit of remembering locations by their dawn chorus. I am trying to pin down what it is that gives the
surroundings their characteristic feel. You feel exposed & vulnerable & very small because of the distances
involved. Im about 10 ks by the track that goes along the cliff from Baird Bay to the west & about 35 ks from
Venus Bay in the east. I dont know if I can get through to Baird Bay on the cliff track in my car. By road its
about 30 ks. I think its likely that I was the only one to sleep on the coast between Baird Bay (which may be no
more than a few shacks) & Venus Bay. Yesterday there was a guy & his son here fishing. They had come in a
shiny 4x4 like the 5 or 6 others I saw during the day. School holidays finish in SA this weekend. You can bet
that everyone of those cars was from Adelaide. When I was having breakfast yesterday morning there was a
shabby blue sedan parked a few hundred yards away left with all its windows wound down & one door ajar.
That was a local car. I could see the owners far away on the water through the binoculars. They were probably
professional fishermen filleting their catch as the boat was surrounded by scores of pelicans (forgot to mention
yesterday that there were large flocks of banded stilts there too). There is a kind of divide here : the tourists are
highly visible in their shiny 4x4s (one had bicycles (for the kids?) attached to the back; another passed me on
the road to Baird Bay towing a two wheeler contraption called “The Ultimate Camper”) while the locals are
skulking out of sight in rustheaps. Thats if they are not the owners of the enormous wheat properties you get
here. I called in at a homestead yesterday to ask if I could use a track over their property to the coast. My map
doesnt indicate when tracks are over private property & I found this one gated. There was no one at home, not
even a dog, but in the yard & sheds I could see hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of vehicles (reapers,
cars, trail bikes) of every conceivable kind. I suspect that these enormous enterprises are often run by a single
(sometimes elderly) couple as is often the case with stations in the inland. It was empty probably because
everyone had to be out working. Im going for a stroll north east along the shore ….. 2.30 Walked along a coast
patrolled by a sea eagle (Haliacetus leucogaster ; a world wide bird ; 2nd largest raptor in aust.) which cruised
overhead on several occasions. Saw a pair of hooded dotterel (Charadrius rubricollis ; of which according to the
ornithologists there are only 1500 left in the country but Ive seen about 30 in a short stretch of coast just west of
Port Fairy in Victoria). The sand in the section of the beach with the red granite boulders is gravel size &
almost too rough to walk on barefoot. Came across a group fishing. They were locals & one of them told me
that you can get through to Baird Bay along the clifftop track in an ordinary car. My impression is that the
informal tracks along the cliff edge may be as much a feature of this coast as the 4x4 tracks to almost every
headland along the N.S.W. coast. (quarter time Collingwood 5.2 to Hawthorn 0.3). The dog with the fishermen
greeted me by jumping up & banging my hand with his teeth to test my nerve. They drove off to a further beach
where I passed them later. We watched a pod of about 30 dolphins very close in. The hope was that they were
herding salmon inshore but they looked very inactive to me. I walked on to a headland & from there the cliffs
stretched away round a beautiful bay as far as you could see. I had been walking for about 3 hours. On the way
back I passed the fishermen again (couple with 2 kids & a guy (whod been on prawn boats) with the dog) &
they said theyd got a salmon. Decided to walk back along the track & only half an hour later was overtaken by
them in their 4x4 & the tray utility. The couple in the 4x4, Kerry & Sandy Jericho (Box 159 Wudinna 5652
(30/4/02. Streaky Bay. Heard on the radio that there is a mouse plague centred on the town)) pulled up &
insisted on giving me a lift. My experience is that everyone I talk to is inclined to be generous when Im on the
road. I can only draw the conclusion that when people are able to assess each other at first hand they want to be
helpful yet at the level of institutions & governments where their relationships are brokered by the servants of
power they can be manipulated to treat each other heartlessly. The speed of life in the big city also helps to erect
barriers. When Kerry & Sandy came to their turn off Kerry insisted on going on, out of their way, to drop me off
right at the van. I promised to send them a copy of the trip notes. (Coll. 8.6 – Hawks 4.6 at ½ time). After lunch
(started on the corn thins & the Vita Brits) the thought came to me that the incident had the feel that it was
meant to be but I couldnt think of how. Then I realized it was saturday & I thought could it be, could it possibly
be that Collingwood are playing footy this arvo & if so what are the chances of picking up a broadcast from
here. So I turned on the radio & the pre-match commentary to the Magpie/Hawks match was coming across
loud & clear. How about that! (Buckley just kicked a goal from 55 out & the ball went through goal post high.
Stick that up ya Dunny!) (3/4 time : Maggies 12.13 – Hawks 7.6) (final score : 15.14 – 9.9).

10
 (A comment on yesterdays analysis of the use of ‘how’ & ‘why’. It is not as if science
answers the question “how?” well or badly. It does it perfectly because it is the asking & the answering process
itself indicated by the word. The origins of the process precede the word that draws attention to it. In the case of
things like music, prayer, death etc. science as always gives the only answers to the ‘how’ of them but fails to
address the ‘why’ which is the more interesting in those cases, let alone the ‘what’. In spite of their same
grammar & very like appearances (at least in english) the processes indicated by each are unrelated. ) (The
television science series many years ago hosted by Prof. Julius Sumner-Miller called “Why is it so?” would
have been better called “How is it so?” The confusion illustrates Wittgensteins point.)

Sunday 21/4/02. Ive noticed that when people ask “why?” in the way you did Tom, that
sometimes they already have the answer without being aware of it – they just havent put the two together. You
had claimed on an earlier occasion that you had a vision. What kind of vision? The word is much in use these
days. Politicians seek votes with visions for the future. Company prospectuses promote visions of expanding
into overseas markets. Starlets have visions of making it in hollywood. Musicians have visions of popularity,
composing for films, making a living from their music ( putting a price on vision?). We live in an age of
visionaries. The word has a long history & once upon a time, my friend, men were visited by visions of a more
compelling variety. They were blinded by them or thrown to the ground & if they survived all they were able to
do was stammer : “Here I am.” & when later they recovered enough to go & warn people of what they had seen
they were ridiculed, derided, stoned & killed, & had to sleep in shit. What kind of vision is yours? Since you are
getting acquainted with the ideas of Teilhard de Chardin Id like to dedicate a poem to you :

in the beginning was the word

and the word was with god, and
the word was god

I imagine heaven to be a music

of a multitude of words and languages
combining all bodies and souls

also I imagine the music of

a sphere of infinite weight
spinning silently through space

we shall all be part of the word

spinning like music in space

but maybe it isnt like that

the song that you sing

is silent
still
as a star
in its journey through space

we on our distant planet

are deaf to
the song
of your night

the galaxies of space turn on eternal wheels

11
 the music of infinity
is not for mortal ears

so here is an attempt at a more prosaic, analytical answer. The world is made of things that dont fit together.
Competing forces strive for supremacy & now that we have developed hugely powerful weapons were on the
verge of self destruction. If our civilization is to survive (& it wont) it is essential we find ways of resolving its
contradictions. It is the same in our little domestic worlds. At the Make It Up Club musicians often put together
combinations of instruments (their own weird creations e.g. the spit-roast contraption) & modes of playing that
are not normally seen & heard together or are asymmetric or even at odds & nevertheless sometimes make
music that is strangely harmonious. You are a leading pioneer in the marriage of man to electronics in music. I
dont think it is an easy marriage. It may be that the electronic revolution is a deadly threat to the place where
music comes from. In the past weve thought that its source was in the throat, the diaphragm, muscles thumping
drums, in stomping feet, in erotic gyrations. In the lungs, liver, heart. Nowadays you see musicians as immobile
as dummies except that occasionally they lean forward to press a button or throw a switch or stretch a leg to
press a footpad. & all those fucken cables going everywhere, mate, one day one of you guys is going to trip over
& strangle yourself on one of them. You spend an ever increasing amount of time carting boxes of electronic
gadgetry up & down stairs to & from your vans. You turn yourselves into technicians & electronic engineers. Its
not a natural alliance. But worst of all is that the stuff costs a fucken fortune. It means that to make music you
have to sell your souls to the money economy. & yet when I listen to the cascades of sounds that come from
you, mate, I hear an ecstatic edge that I dont hear enough of elsewhere. So I think that it may be your task (&
though we dont know whos given us the job we know when weve got it) to help redeem this horrible marriage.
& it may be that if this world is not to blow up (but it will just collapse in on itself) it is essential that the
warring pieces in our individual lives & small communities be made to fit – otherwise who cares if it blows up!
4.28. Strolled for about 4 hours westward to the mouth of Baird Bay & back. Its quite
narrow but the bay goes inland for about 20 ks. Saw a pair of osprey & some galahs that nest in holes in the cliff
face. Spotted a pair of seals dozing right inshore against a granite rock from far away through the binoculars. So
I went round the headland to sneak up on them (I have sneaked up on a sleeping tern at a beach to touch its
back; H saw me do it; it wasnt a miracle, just took a long time & patience) from the other side using the rock as
cover. Seals sleep floating half turned on their back with one flipper sticking stiffly straight up out of the water.
I wanted to sit just above them & observe the look on their faces when they woke up to see me. But as I got near
the rock they came swimming around to my side. Later when I was standing still on it each came in turn to
within 5 or so yards, stuck a head out for a look, & went off fishing to a spot a few hundred yards away. Today
is the second day the sunrise was obscured by cloud & its been like that all day. Just as well : Im not looking
forward to it clearing up as I think Im here a month too early. Baird Bay looks interesting as its very different to
the ocean coast & there are heaps of water birds. The water is still because there is an island called Jones Island
in the mouth. Had a dip for a wash. Tonight Im still sleeping here for the sound of the waves. … Have made a
discovery. This morning I had thought I caught a quick movement out of the corner of my eye of something
small disappear into the back of the gap along the side of the front seat of the car. I had the impression of a
mouse but decided it had been a trick of the imagination. Just now when I went to get a packet of muesli from
the box under the back seat I found it gnawed through & some of the muesli spilt. The hole is in the side of the
packet about the size of a ten cent coin & ragged at the edges. Ive had the problem before & its bloody hard to
solve. Ive searched everywhere but cant see any other evidence of the critter. It must have gnawed the hole
during the day because I would have heard it at night. There are more packets of muesli there & about a doz
packets of corn thins & Vita Wheat it would also enjoy. Where it might get into difficulties is getting enough
moisture unless it can make use of the tomatoes or apples.

Monday 22/4/02. 7.50 (7.20 am S.A. time). There was a big drop in temperature
overnight & I have a lot of condensation in the car. Just after sunrise a thick land mist rolled over the cliff edge
& over the sea but its clearing now.

12
 if you are not satisfied
with the stillness of the night
go and seek
in the depths of the sea

you can make brandy

out of water
flowers
out of sand

seek
and you shall find
ask
and you shall receive

out of beautiful women

come lovers
out of treacherous women
brave men are born

Even as individuals we can be viewed as aggregates of differences that dont necessarily fit together. Each of the
senses (& there are far more of them than people realize) is a separate stimulus response system connecting
entirely different sets of events yet the whole lot have chosen (perhaps at the dawn of evolution the major senses
such as seeing, hearing, touch, smell were separate simple creatures in a primordial ocean that later came
together in a cooperative venture) to be housed in the same body in what is not always an easy alliance. Our
awareness is the differences. I like to think of it as a discomfort; others call it consciousness. You walk down a
beautiful summer lane & as you pass a fence you hear sobbing on the other side. You can disconnect yourself
from one of your senses, block your ears, & at the cost of simplifying yourself continue on. Or perhaps you are
listening to birds singing as you stroll along & see someone injured, bleeding by the side of the road. Look the
other way & continue on if you are the kind of person who knows how to block out what he has seen. Most of
us do not want to see or hear & the main method we employ to resolve the difference between the senses is to
hand over the job to the experts. Politicians, rabbis, mullahs, priests, monks, shrinks are only too willing to tell
you what you are & arent or should & shouldnt be seeing & hearing. At a price they will tell you everything you
need to know & more. Karen Armstrong (whose religiosity is pap) will interpret for you what the mystics saw.
Be it the buddha or mohammed, Isaac Luria or the gnostics they are all equally grist for her mill. The other way
is with alcohol, sedatives, opiates, pot, prozac which also are capable of closing off the senses.We are a play of
differences. & those who choose the path of openness had better know that they may not survive. For the
survivors the risks seem to have been made worthwhile by the harmonies that are sometimes visited on them . I
am in balance now & I think it is the result of having spent 3 nights on the cliff edge to the sound of churning
water.

dreams are made of mist

you wake
and they are gone

so too with plans

which like castles in the air
disappear in the sky

13
 it is said
you can mould minds out of clay

you make bread

out of seed
brandy out of
water

yet when
you make a figure out of sand
the next tide
will wash it away

I slept particularly sweetly for most of the night. It didnt bother me when I briefly felt what I knew to be the
mouse on the foot of the sleeping bag. Later I heard it rustling in what I guessed was my rubbish bag. But when
I heard it gnawing in the food box under the bed I put on my headlamp & got up to check. Sure enough it had
gnawed a hole in the other muesli packet. This little guy has good teeth. Ive also got 8 litres of long life milk &
if it put a hole in one of them it would be a disaster. So just now I had another look in the box & besides the
large droppings that it has left behind (from their size I can tell that it has been eating well) I see it has already
had a bit of a go at the corner of one of the milk cartons. So I have no option but to empty the car & rearrange
my stuff. With luck I might flush the critter out, but Im not hopeful. Then Im driving on a bit …. Emptied
everything out & brushed the floors. Lost 3 small cartons of milk all of which had been gnawed on a top corner.
When you squeezed the container milk spurted out but none had spilled into the car. Dug a hole & burnt the
rubbish. The hope was that Id carry the little bugger out in one of the boxes (as I had once before) but no such
luck. There are air vents & all sorts of cavities for it to hide in but from now on it will have no access to any
food except the tomatoes & fruit. Im surprised Ive picked him up as the other two Ive had I got in lusher
vegetation on the east coast.
….(A further comment on our bodies as housing for the senses. Another effective way to
distance ourselves from them & to transfer the task to mediators is to rely on newspapers & watching a lot of
telly. Its still experience, of course, but skewed to only several senses. Also its worth pointing out that the
body/mind problem that philosophy students are pestered with all over the world relies entirely on acceptance of
the cartesian paradigm. Otherwise it cannot be coherently stated ie. there is no problem. A more satisfying
analysis is to note that one end of the stimulus/response systems that are the senses are bundled together as a
single organism but at the other ends they are all over the place.)
…. (& it is strange that complexity comes from simplicity. It makes you wonder whether
everything is possible. At least we know it is impossible to predict where we are going. & perhaps we carry a
memory in the way we are structured (we are the memory) of the primal single dot that physicists claim we
were at the moment of the big bang & in our confusion, now that we have been scattered, some of us call it god.
We ache for the unity we remember. Teilhard de Chardin, who may have mistaken it for a vision of the future,
believed we were heading for a new unity, wired together by electronics like cells in a supra organism. Others
are drawn to the thought that we are forever being scattered further.)

a lighthouse sends
a beam of light
to guide
the voyager across the sea

but who will take him

past the ports
14
 past the headlands and the reefs

to the castles in the depths

where the drowning sailors sing

….4.20. A bit past where I had walked to yesterday the coastal track crosses a sandhill
that I wasnt going to risk so I left the car at the mouth of the bay with windows open & walked the 5 or so ks
into Baird Bay. There are some 20 houses facing the bay in a single row along a street with lighting. Talked to a
guy who owns the two biggest ones & a fancy cruise boat in which he takes tourist out. He is one of only 6
permanents there. He says the track a bit off the coast is fine so Ill use it tomorrow. As I was going along the
shore I saw what looked like a pair of very impressive dorsal fins 100 yards off shore so I waded out in water
that never reached the knees. It was a largish ray with a box-like head & as it paddled it poked the ends of its
‘wings’ above water. They are called ‘flyaways’ here & they have a habit of following a person. There are
thousands of them according to the bloke. Jones Island just near where I am now has a seal colony which
accounts for the ones I saw yesterday. Couldnt use the public phone because it kept saying the line was in use.
Saw one of those syncro VWs & it looked good : the right size & has good clearance. I can tell from my tyre
marks that no one has been by in my absense . Im right next to the edge of a rock platform thats about 10 ft
above the shoreline only metres away. I can see & hear the big waves breaking in the mouth of the bay but here
the water is barely lapping the shore. Had a dip & it was OK. There are so many kinds of water birds about that
Im not listing them but there are no banded stilts. Pelicans & swans are the most prominent. Despite the sun the
fresh breeze off the ocean makes it a perfect day.

Tuesday 23/4/02.

the surfers come

to try their skill
they think
that they will test the waves

the wave
that grinds away the rock
knows nothing
of the young or aged

I made my move at 3 am. The mouse had been active from the moment I got into bed. I
dozed fitfully listening to his antics. After I jerked him off the sleeping bag he subjected me to an example of
berserk behaviour running frenetically up & down & round about with scrabbling feet for minutes. It sounded as
if he was climbing up the sides & tearing about on the ceiling but that must have been an illusion. On one
occasion I thought I heard him down the back at the same time as I heard a noise beside me. Were there two of
them? I ignored various gnawing noises as all the food items were out of reach but they did worry me because
though it seemed unlikely I wondered if it was possible for him to gnaw through one of my 2 water containers.
Eventually he settled down to making steady rustling noises in what had to be the rubbish bag. There was an
empty sardine can in there, a squashed milk carton & a few greasy items that would have whetted his appetite
but provided little of substance. I like my own company & the various experiences I have when Im in half sleep
& finally decided Id had enough of him. So I put on my head torch stealthily & peered over the back seat into
the plastic boxes where my gear is. The rubbish bag was conveniently in the top open container & I could hear
rustling inside. With a quick snatch I clasped the top shut. I felt it jump inside. To make sure I had him I held the
bag up to see if there were any holes gnawed in the bottom. There werent. So I leant out of the sliding door
15
which I had left open hoping hed leave of his own accord & dropped him still in the bag a couple of yards away
from the van. I shut the sliding door so he couldnt hop back in & was pleased to hear the occasional rustle
through the window. It felt good to settle down into a silent car & I realized with relief how much of my
attention had been taken up by him. Some time later it seemed to me I heard a rustling inside. Then more. Then
there was the characteristic scrabble of tiny running feet. It was either another mouse as there may have been
two in the first place or it had found its way back in (along the steering column? through one of the rust holes?).
This morning I carefully emptied out the contents of the rubbish bag for inspection before returning them &
putting it back in the car. As I was having breakfast I heard the bag rustle, then again. & then for the first time I
saw him properly, noseing about at the base outside the bag trying to get in. He darted back under the seat but
then came out a few more times. He must be getting hungry & thirsty. Hed have a better chance outside but if I
tried to grab him hed be too quick for me.

Im at a spot on Baird Bay about 15 ks along the coast northwards from the village. At
Baird Bay I tried the public phone again but it wasnt working. I wasnt going to ask the rich guy to use his as I
had a hunch he wouldnt have liked me to though I would have offered to pay. There are no shops or other
facilities there except a small caravan park with newly built toilets for travellers. About a kilometre north of
where I am there is a family camped so Ive come back to here so as not to crowd them. Their kids go out at
night to shoot rabbits for the dogs. There are a couple of boats moored nearby that belong to professional
fishermen. They are greeks & have gone back to Adelaide for the greek easter. Ive stopped because I want to
pass a couple of comments on things Ive written. I realize that a reader might easily get the impression that Ive
got it in for religious hierarchies & other mediators, particularly theologians, for what they claim to be gods
word or as in the case of Karen Armstrong of her interpretation of the meaning of the language of the ‘mystics’.
But Im not criticizing their existence. If there is one thing that I know it is that we are a single creature & it may
be that the various hierarchical structures including financial, aristocratic, institutional, the bureaucracies,
government etc. are its skeleton. I do not want to live in a chaotic society. What I am doing in the case of the
religious is clarifying their role as middlemen so as to hold them accountable for what they say & to the
interests that they are supposed to serve. The decision by the christians to have a church government made up of
celibate men is a historic one. The mystics are remarkable for how little they had to say on sex (including
muhammad who had many wives) but the celibate men have said heaps. In the case of christians its almost as if
it became their central preoccupation. It is worth asking how it happened & what purpose it serves. Karen
Armstrongs views of the nature & place of the language of the mystics is hostage to her understanding of
distinctions such as inside/outside, mythos/logos, metaphysical/literal all of which she uses to reinforce each
other. The greatest thinkers of the age are finding those distinctions unsatisfactory. Foucault wracks his brains
wondering what it is that we do when we use a metaphor (the way to analyse the divisions is to ask what uses
they serve; who benefit from us accepting the distinctions) while Karen blithely jumps in as if its obvious. None
of the great mystics would agree that they were merely telling imaginative stories that would make it easier for
people to make sense of their lives in hard times. The notion is ridiculous. People didnt throw away everything
they had to follow them around because they told a good yarn. The buddha & his monks didnt spend their lives
traipsing from city to city, muhammad go to war, & the nazarene get crucified in the belief that what they said
were figments of their imaginations. Karens answer is that they understood the mysterious power of the
imaginative world which after all is responsible even for science (& it is at this point that the contradiction in
her position is patent). Bull! When I say that we are a single creature (I gave explanations in ‘13/2/01 – 26/2/01’
though its obvious) I make no distinction between the world of the imagination & the practical world of
political events or between metaphysical & literal – the consequences are the same in all of them.

16
 *
Im behind the dune of a very beautiful beach a bit north of Point Labatt. There is a colony
of australian sea lions that you can view from the top of the cliff at the point. Normally Im not much for tourist
spots but I was impressed. I counted over 100 of them through the binoculars lying about like maggots spread
out sparsely over a large area of red rock. Apparently its the largest aussie mainland colony of them & they are
very endangered as are other sea lion species around the world. These are the seals where the males grow to a
huge size & can weigh up to 400 kilos. You have to go round Baird Bay to the western side of it to get here. It is
australias only endemic seal. For a distance of some 13 ks the land on the peninsula is about to be sold off in
250+ acre lots so access points to great beaches like this one will be closed off. Apparently issues of public
indemnity prevent land owners allowing access I was told by some people who were fishing. Its 6.00 & there is
no one here now. There is a change on the way which I hope doesnt bring much rain as Im itching to do a walk
north along the beaches & south along the rim of the cliff from Point Labatt towards Cape Radstock. There are
thunderstorms about. Tonight Ill be setting my rubbish bag trap again. The mouse must be getting very hungry
& thirsty. Id like to turf him out to give him a chance. A guy with teeth like hes got should survive almost
anywhere.

there was
a man in the suburbs
who prayed that he be
a sailor

and his mind became

an ocean
shimmering fishes were
its cells

then he knew that life was

governed
by the surging of the waves

17
 Wednesday 24/4/02.

the boy listened

to the whorls of the shell
whispering
the secrets of the sea

all life comes from the sea

come back to me
come back to me

so he went to the beach

and made a castle
of sand
born from the shells of the sea

The mouse was particularly active during the night & I was extremely alert before falling asleep
for a short time from exhaustion. The paper bag strategy didnt work as he gnawed his way in through the
bottom & because I was hearing mainly various pitches of gnawing instead of rustling I had assumed he wasnt
in there. I kept worrying that he was working on a water container. It seemed to me that his determination was
capable of anything. When I checked the contents of the bag this morning before burning it I found that he had
gnawed through the empty milk cartons, in which he would have found some moisture, & the mackerel fillet
container into which I had put the emptied can. There would have been a bit of briny moisture there too. He did
a few sprints around the inside of the car which made me disinclined to lie naked on the sleeping bag though it
was uncomfortably hot inside. A desperate thought came to me : that when I get into Streaky Bay 50 or so ks to
the north, as I will have to do for petrol, maybe I should get a mousetrap.

Before leaving Melbourne I had told H that I would write less on this trip as I wanted to
tip the balance of my days towards walking. I wanted to be more carefree & recover some of the health that I
lose in the city. A few alcohol-free days have already benefitted but the writing has got out of hand so I want to
finish off the piece for ‘publication’. As usual I have left the subject that I find most difficult to get my head
around till the end. In the last piece I put out I said that all killing is murder & that religions that supply pastors
for the army stink. I meant to set out my basis for saying it as much for my own clarification as for others.
Blaise Pascal would have it that in the final analysis, when we examine the reasons for our reasons, we have
only two sources of primary knowledge : intuition & revelation. Wittgenstein claims that the bedrock is
consensus of a fundamental kind where we have agreed on, by jointly practicing, the basic moves of the
“language game”. I suggest that Wittgensteins bedrock is underlaid by other strata : the cooperation between the
organs of the body which itself is a development of the regularities & synchronicities that govern atoms,
molecules etc. But this is airy-fairy stuff. All I want to do in todays entry is to explain that I do not hold these
kind of positions for what I say about killing. I gain no support from the commandments of moses as it is quite
clear that “Thou Shalt Not Kill” only applied to the tribes of israel amongst themselves. Its purpose was
undoubtedly to cement them into a nation. The way the law was interpreted is shown by their subsequent
murder of the Canaanites. Besides there were all kinds of exceptions even among themselves : sorcerers were to
be killed out of hand etc. The biblical commandment has more holes in it than a sieve & thats how it has been
correctly interpreted ever since. But I say, categorically, that you are never allowed to kill others except when
they request to be released from pain (torturers will interpret this in the way that suits them). It is obvious (I
18
hope) that, unlike moses, I do not base my ban on a revelation. But suppose that on one of my walks a sandhill
suddenly became enveloped in a smoky cloud & a voice from inside the cloud said : “Youre wrong, mate, youre
not allowed to help people kill themselves for release from pain. Youre never allowed to kill anyone including
yourself except for self-protection, or if theyre sorcerers or demons, or evil threatening to overcome the world,
or to protect civilization as we know it, or for the sake of women & children & freedom & justice or if they are
infidels”. (19/5/02. Sounds like a burning Bush to me - helenz)

Gods, like men, revere the boys who die for them in battle.
Heraclitus

In that case my answer is “I do not recognize the authority of sky gods.” I would of course be mightily
impressed especially if to demonstrate that he meant it he zapped the ground next to me with a bolt of lightning.
I would be forced to run for cover, to hide from his wrath, but if he found me so be it. I disagree utterly with
Soren Kierkegaards meditation on the abraham isaac story. I suspect it was invented by priests with claims to
gods word to con people into blindly following their ridiculous instructions. The fact is people do hear voices (I
have heard my name called) that can tell them to kill themselves or others because they are demons etc. etc. & if
they obey they are acting no differently to moses & the churchmen ( the inquisitors burnt so many witches).
Nor do I lay claim to an intuition not to kill. I suspect the opposite : that the urge to kill those who we believe
threaten our lives is wired into us almost as compellingly as the life urge itself. My problem with Pascals
distinction is that when I look hard at those two words they merge into each other. The most extensively
documented account we have of revelation is that of the verses of muhammad (koran) which were dictated to
scribes over many years (he was illiterate) & where we have many accounts of how he looked, whether he
trembled, or fainted etc. at those times. If he had claimed that they were the poetic expressions of a heated
imagination or intuition people would have found it just as acceptable though they wouldnt have supported him
in his political activities. The greeks attributed poetry to the muses. Nor do I gain any help from Wittgenstein. In
his scheme language has nothing to say on why we should or shouldnt kill but it enables science & the nuclear
bomb. Hardly anyone agrees with me. So I say again without invoking any authority, nor claiming it myself :
Thou Shalt Not Kill.

*
Did a 4 hour walk north along the coast that had a bleak aspect. One section looks just
like parts of Victorias west coast that is also limestone cliff. It must be the knowledge of the sea lion colony that
kept making me think of coasts Ive seen on telly of islands near antarctica. As you walk you know the ocean
stretches all the way south to there. About ½ of it was beach with rather yielding sand that sloped steeply into
the water so that it was hard to walk on. The plants along the edge of the beach are varied & there is no marram
grass here yet. There is a 4x4 track along the cliff top & evidence that the beaches get visited.

in the womb of the wave

dead men float
waiting
to be born into sand
Helen

Thursday 25/4/02. 8.20 am (7.50 SA time). Yesterday evening after tea but still in good
light as I sat in the car after completing the journal entry I heard the familiar mad scamper of feet. I had
assumed whenever I heard it at night that he was running about in the interior of the car, perhaps along the
19
plastic curtains & upside down on the upholstery of the ceiling. So I was surprised to discover that he was (I
could track his movements exactly) in the ceiling cavity between the upholstery & the roof panels. That put a
new dimension on it as it explained why I could never catch him by emptying out the car. The panels
themselves are hollow with access holes on the inner surfaces giving him large spaces to roam in complete
safety. I also realized that he wasnt going to die of thirst. The whole body is rusty & I hear water dripping in
several spots inside the panels when it rains. I went to bed in what has become my normal state of alertness. The
rubbish bag had an empty milk carton & kipper fillets tin in it for bait. It was a new bag to replace the holed one
made of a very crisp plastic that crackled at the slightest touch. I also had some crackly cellophane inside that
the corn thins had been in. I put the bag in a more strategic position lower down with the opening against the
top of a box to encourage him to walk straight into the open larder instead of gnawing from the bottom. It wasnt
long before I heard the familiar pattering, small clattering (loose items in the open box I keep diary, pen etc. in)
& then rustling. I gave him plenty of time to give him a chance to get engrossed in the gnawing so he wouldnt
hear me putting on the head torch, getting out of the sleeping bag & creeping to lean over the back seat ready to
clap the top of the bag shut. Everything went to plan & there I was starkers, triumphantly holding the bag next
to my ear listening for any sound inside. I wanted to be sure this time. His technique was to lie very still
pretending he wasnt there then after enough time had passed without me moving the bag Id hear him stir. After
putting on my sandals holding the neck of the bag in one hand I gave it a thorough shaking & once again held it
very still. Sure enough after awhile there was a faint rustling. It didnt bother me going out naked into a cool,
breezy night spitting with rain 100 yards into the bushes to shake the bag out – I was that excited. I shook
everything out as I was meaning to collect & bury the rubbish when I got up in the morning which Ive done. I
had thoughtlessly taken off the head torch so I didnt actually get to see him scamper away but I wasnt feeling
sentimental. I got back into bed with relief rather than joy. I was beginning to forget what a good nights sleep
felt like. I lay there lapping up the precious peace & quiet when I heard the familiar scamper, then the rustling.
Then the rustling was much louder & I realized he was scrambling about in the empty bag. Once again I was
hovering over it & sure enough there he was inside making little jumps unable to get out. I didnt even have to
snatch at the bag to close the neck before making absolutely sure he was inside this time. It was only the second
opportunity I had had to set eyes on him properly. I sat on the seat holding it in front of my face gloating. I
forgot to put on the sandals but I had my head torch on as I trekked naked into the scrub. I still didnt see him
when I shook the bag open but I knew the little buggers can move like greased lightning. I carefully checked
inside the bag & smoothed it out to be absolutely sure I wasnt carrying him back inside. This time I did feel joy
as I crawled back into the cot & heaved a sigh of pleasure. It felt like a special occasion & to mark it I checked
the time. It was only 9.10 pm, plenty of time for a good nights sleep. Then I heard the familiar scamper in what
I now knew was the ceiling of the van. That was the moment I realized for the first time, with a sense between
hopelessness & resignation, that what I had in the car was not a mouse with an o but mice with an i. I collected
my thoughts. I definitely knew I had thrown one out but probably I had thrown out 4 when you counted the two
efforts on previous days. I had one other mouse still in the car but probably more. I had refined a method of
trapping them using the Technical Book Shop take away bag. The bag was set. I caught another one exactly at
midnight. After that it was quiet for a long time & I was beginning to think that maybe, just maybe, I had seen
the last of them. I wasnt confident though & at 12.50 I had another one. These last two had been considerably
bigger than the one I had got earlier & I reckon that given time they would have scrambled out of the bag if I
had left them. From then on it was quiet & my confidence grew as I realized that after each event the overall
noise level of scratchings, rustling, small thumps & scampers had been decreasing. It was a good sign. Finally I
fell into a deep sleep from which I didnt wake till a bit before dawn when I heard the patter of feet in the ceiling
again. It was a one off & perhaps I dreamt it. Ive smoothed out & carefully folded the plastic bag in case I need
it in the future & will set it tonight. Should you want to employ the same method you get them when you buy a
book from Australias Largest Technical and Specialist Bookshop. 295 Swanston Street Melbourne 3000
Australia. Telephone 0396633951. Fax 0396632094. info@ techbooks.com.au http://www.techbooks.com.au
The key to it is the kind of plastic the bag is made of : it is too slippy for them to get a foothold to climb out.

*
20
 (5.20 pm. Coll. 9.12 – Ess 4.9. Hi, Don!) Got engrossed in watching the sea lions this
morning for over an hour. You get a perfect overview of the whole colony from the platform at the cliff top.
There are about 80 animals. (28/4/02. Counted about another 50 on the granite island just off Cape Blanche 20
ks away. The whole area between should be a conservation zone instead of the pitiful 2 ks or so around Point
Labatt. Saw a squid trawler all lit up just off the point this morning. Sea lions eat squid, cuttlefish & lobsters.)
The count I did a couple of days ago is incorrect because I mistakenly included some ordinary fur seals in a
group out on the furthest rocks. A smaller number of fur seals were there again this morning. Its an amazing
natural wonder & the whole peninsula should be a national park to protect them instead of the scrub being sold
off. They were much more active today & noisy. They breed alternately in winter & summer every 18 months.
There were plenty of pups suckling mothers as they lay about on their backs. There was one majestic bull with a
harem of about 7 females who lay with one flipper casually over the biggest females neck. Sea lions are well
shaped for snuggling together & tend to lie about in groups. Females are most numerous as the males roam
away visiting colonies hundreds of kilometres away. Sharks hang around the colony but apparently a sea lion
can outswim them. There was a very small pup, the smallest by far in the whole colony, who was wandering
about from one female to the other but always getting rebuffed. I had noticed him the day before yesterday too.
He must have been abandoned or his mother taken at sea. I think he was starving to death. Sometimes when a
pup finished suckling an apparently sleeping mother he would try to slowly edge his way to the teat but shed
always wake up & chase him off. When a mother went crook at him hed flatten himself on the ground
submissively. On one occasion he cried piteously but no one took any notice. The colony looks very
comfortable among the flattish rounded red granite rocks that make a platform that juts hundreds of metres into
the sea with many convenient swimming pools for the pups. The surrounding land was donated to the
conservation people by the local landowner so that the colony would be better protected as they were getting
shot from the clifftop. Afterwards I went for a walk along the edge of the very spectacular cliff that runs for 10
or so kilometres to Cape Radstock. From the highest point at the cape you get a comprehensive view over Jones
Island & the mouth of Baird Bay back along the coast I had come including my camping spot before this one &
the one on the cliff edge where I must have collected the mice. I hurried back along a straighter line as I wanted
to get in the last quarter of the Coll/Ess footy match which I knew from last week was being broadcast on the
local station. The walk took about 5 hours. When I got back I had another look at the colony hoping that the
mother of the pup was back but the situation hadnt changed. Drove back to the spot behind the beach & listened
to the last quarter of the footy as I ate tea. Yair … a pretty good day.

I am afraid one day as I look

at the tiny shells left by
the receding tide

I will
see such beauty
that knowing it to be
only the faintest reflection
of the far greater beauty
my dim eyes
cannot see

my mind
will be shattered
like coloured glass and I will
never be able to put it into words
21
 Friday 26/4/02. Ive still got mice in the car : the shy ones that wont go into the trap. Ive
brushed out the new droppings but theyre everywhere. (28/4/02. Caught the last mouse yesterday evening in the
trap. It had gnawed through 6 cartons of milk during the day on friday.) (3/5/02. Streaky Bay. Got new
mouse/mice in the car.) (6/5/02. Tumby Bay. The following night the mouse had gone & Ive been free of them
since. Rang H from Cummins : Vis got into a nursing home with an activities program (21/5/02. Called Bodalla
& run by the uniting church & the nurses are chatty & she likes it); Joes broken up with Mon; Kate finished the
teaching round satisfactorily; Dan has gone to London & claims that if it doesnt work out he will try something
new when he gets back (21/5/02. Made a reverse charge call saying that the agency had put him up in the city
centre & he was loving it. Could be away for 6 months he said but has not done a job or looked for work yet & I
give him about a month); Ben is depressed.)

Meaning is entirely in the usage. The commandment Thou Shalt Not Kill has been used
to provide a cloak of moral high ground for killing people under its various clauses of exception to the rule. To
accept them requires me to erect barriers between myself & others with the supposition that under certain
circumstances people might become inhuman & unreachable. I do not have the knowledge to make such
judgements & if I did would not be prepared to assume the authority to act on them. I do not recognize the
legitimacy of any government that funds armed forces let alone produces weapons of mass destruction. I
despise the christian churches for their pretence to be honouring the memory of the man who (though he said he
had not come to change the law) had wanted to reinterpret the commandment so that men would have become
like lambs (sacrificial?) (most of the other animals dont kill members of their own species either.) His radical
proposal would have changed the world but it was counter-intuitive & doomed to failure. His example lapsed.
No one can know the future because it would make change impossible but we can discern potentials in the
present. Perhaps he feared that unless they changed men would destroy themselves.

The prophets voice possessed of god requires no ornament, no sweetening of tone, but
carries over a thousand years.
Heraclitus

& I sense that our civilization is drawing to a conclusion. There will be many afterwards
who will say we saw it coming but then we didnt. & I suggest, should there be anyone who hears what I am
saying, that preparations be made. I make only one : I reaffirm my loyalty to the memory of a mild prophet,
teacher & healer who failed to change human nature & wanted to help others but couldnt save himself. (3/5/02.
Yesterday at Speed Point just out of Yanerbie which is 19 ks south of Streaky Bay I met a traveller who seemed
very competent. He had fitted out the ½ bus we had coffee & biscuits in himself. He was an ex-abalone diver &
a surfie. We shared a knowledge of very specific spots on the NSW coast such as Goalen Head. He is based out
of Torquay in Victoria. He advised I get a Mitsubishi 4x4 as they have had plenty of time to refine it & the parts
would be much cheaper than the VW & people knew how to work on them. He said he had a vision of jesus
when he was in an alternative community in fiji & his life had only one purpose now. On the front of his van
was the quote from John 10.10 “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more
abundantly.” He was predicting an apocalyptic age. I regret now I didnt stay to listen more as he would have
talked on & on. I gave him some of my ‘pieces’ because of our common interests & drove off to have a meal in
private by the water at Yanerbie. On reflection I cannot detect any difference in the status of his experience &
the relevatory ecstasy described by Blaise Pascal whos ‘Pensees’ I have with me in the car. But because Pascal
was a great scientist & is acknowledged to have been one of europes foremost intellects his experience is taken
seriously but an ex-abalone diver & surfie wasnt able to hold my attention even though I have had a related
experience myself.)

22
To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists,
manifesting itself to us as the highest wisdom and the
most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can
comprehend only in their most primitive forms – this
knowledge, this feeling, is at the centre of all true
religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong
to the ranks of devoutly religious men.

Einstein

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15/4/02 – 26/4/02

15/4/02 – 26/4/02

15/4/02 – 26/4/02

15/4/02 – 26/4/02

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