Hang in there Miranda you are “not” alone; whether it be just an old crow with a strange message too hard to decipher or one of the many other birds whom share the treetops with you; there are those on the ground such as myself whom do not have the strength to climb the tree tops and join you, but follow your daily blog with enthusiasm.

Your courage and esteem shines through to all those who follow your daily progress!
Keep your chin up,
Love and Best Wishes,
Cath XX

I am so glad the old crow arrived darling, she was telling you WE ALL MISS YOU and are SO PROUD of YOU. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

We went to Tassie last year – 1st time for me at the age of 40, & 1st time for my little boy at the age of 3. It was also the 1st time either of us had read The Lorax – ironically! We loved it there, so so beautiful!! I admire your courage and resolve Miranda. Thank you for doing what you are doing for all of us that love Tasmania and it’s wilderness. My little boy’s favourite animal is the Tassie devil. He is also grateful for what you’re doing and all you’re sacrificing to be able to do it. Strength to you from Bendigo – Melissa & Eli.

I recall reading a blog years ago, whist researching bicycle touring. This man rode his bike from Malaysia, all through South-East Asia, up through China over the Himalayas and down into the foothills of India. He spoke of the loneliest time on this journey whilst passing through Bangkok in Thailand, one of the most populated and bustling places on Earth. Just feeling completely disconnected and lacking any sense of community. And for him, the most connected, free and alive was camped by himself hundreds of kilometers from anywhere on the Tibetan plateau crossing the Himalayas.

Anyway, everyone is on their own solo journey, even though we do operate within communities and networks, ultimately we all carry some pain rooted in that deep illusion of separation we all experience. Separation from source, from the earth and from each other.

Sometimes I close my eyes and imagine what it is like right now, where the sun is rising? (i just checked and the sun is now rising in Peru) What is the puma or the sloth experiencing whilst the sunlight pierces through the canopy… or that rare mountain bromeliad that no scientist has discovered, up in the misty cloud forest.

And as the sunsets in south-east Asia… what is the Orangutan in Sumatra experiencing right now, having made its nest in the treetops, not altogether dissimilar to your situation in Tazzy right now…. settling in for another moonlit night up high above the realm of the Sumatran Tiger…. or Tazzy devil as it may be in your case

Keep breathing sister…

“Sitting quietly – Doing Nothing – Spring Comes – And the Grass Grows”

Hi, just saying hello, and how much I appreciate what you are doing. I was just reading your blog about the crow, when at 6am up here a crow called out in my garden! I i am sure it said, stay positive, we are all proud of what you are doing! I also wanted to let you know that i loved the might shots uou have taken of the creatured sharing the forest with you. Keep safe, kindest regards from Jillian

Miranda, what you are experiencing is quite understandable. You’ve been up in that tree for 87 days for goodness sake while off in the distance people are buzzing about their daily business, a glass of wine after work with friends, sitting down to dinner at night with family in comfort, watching tellie, or whatever, then to bed. But what you’re doing is far more important – it was a noble and courageous action in the beginning and you are still there which is simply bloody amazing. You are my “Tasmanian of the Year”, no question. I’m glad a bird joined you for such a long time and the fact that it wasn’t a pretty tweeter makes it even better because it’s saying that every little critter that seeks out that forest, however humble or ordinary, is special and worthy of protection. I think the “Arrr-Ark” means ‘thank you’. When you are feeling really low, try meditating – direct your mind to a quiet, peaceful place and just remember why you are there.

Maddie xox

If the link works … here is “The Moomins and the Great Flood”, sorry I couldn’t make it into a nice hyperlink… and I don’t know if the link will transfer live within the comment, but, here goes…

“[PDF]
T M   G F by Tove Jansson∗
ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/moomin.pdf
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat – Quick View
his mother arrived at the deepest part of the great forest. It was completely … Moomins cannot stand the cold at all, so the house would have to be ready ….. everywhere were furniture and houses and big trees that the flood had carried with it.”

Keep on keeping on. Love your work.

Congratulations, Miranda, on having the staying power and conviction to stay in that wonderful but lonely place. A lot of people feel inspired by the simple humanity of your writings. You’ve been there almost three months – an awesome achievement that way exceeds reasonable expectations. Aaark. Aaark. Geoff

[…/cont]

So when word had come of the goblins’ renewed hateful labours, the Good Princess with faithful companions travelled to the Mountain Source. They vowed to defend their Giant friends. To this end they fashioned a high structure, which, when it was finished, the Princess ascended. One of the first to greet her was a pure white hawk, which surveyed her from its vantage point some short distance from the Tower. The White Hawk did not speak. The loyal companions had first given to the Tower the name “Tower of Protection Against Evil Spells” but as the year turned, and days and months went by, in conversation it began to be called the Tower of Imprisonment. It had neither walls nor windows, and yet once inside the tower, the Princess could not leave. She had become a prisoner of an invisible force known as Good Conscience. For how could she leave the Forest Spirits, the birds of the air and the creatures of the ground to the evils portended. And what of the gentle Tree Giants? They stood and gave sweetness to the air, shelter to the many and strength to all. Could she bear to abandon them to the goblins carts, the chains and the cutting teeth? This was as the Men of Experience had foreseen.

Of the many companions in her isolation, Good Conscience who had neither shape nor form, would come to her in thought and would scold her and yet be her friend and offer support. Good Conscience was not an easy friend. She never visited if the Good Princess had company and it is probable that she herself had few friends. It is said that she disliked Quick Excuses, and even argued with her, and some say Miss Good Conscience was even suspicious of Public Promises, who most of the common people thought was a fine fellow.

And so the Good Princess spent her days and nights in that tower in the Thick Forest. By day she wrote her messages on fine material and threw them to the four winds and her friends would take them, on the wing and drop them beyond the borders of that region. Pilgrims would come, at occasional times, with food and cheer for our Princess and then they would leave.

Once, the Wicked Handmaiden, having seen one of the cloth messages, sent a terrible storm which rocked the Tower. Good Conscience begged the Good Princess as a duty-to-the-self, to come down, lest one of the Handmaiden’s lightning bolts find its mark. Just as quickly however, Public Promise countered that she’d given her word. Surprisingly, Quick Excuses turned up and supported Good Conscience, saying that she’d not be much use to the Giant Folk if she let one of the thunder bolts get her. Our Princess struggled, while Public Promise and Good Conscience fought it out at the Towertop. Fear was also there, circling, calling, jostling with Quick Excuses, trying to make himself heard. But the very noise of the storm itself was deafening and the Princess could hardly hear them fighting. The wind was so powerful that it caused her Tower to toss and sway and all around her it smote the forest with fury and the treetops bent this way and that around her. And yet, in spite of wanting to force her down from the Tower, the wind storm actually made the Princess hold on all the more determinedly to her position high in the Tower. So she did not give in.

[T.B.Cont/…]

[…/cont]

Our Princess began to see that her messages were a tapestry, not just of cloth and thread, but of self discovery and words. Yet she could not see the whole, she was simply the instrument. What guided her hand she could not say, what would be the end result, she could not see. She sat in her Tower, meaning to write polemic and yet wrote pieces of great beauty. She wrote a piece with love … of her time in that place we know as the Little River of Flowers. Her friends flew that message to the far places on her earth. Many eyes glistened at the beauty and sadness of her tale. And kept it for second readings.

Here is some of what she wrote:

“Dear friends in the wide world: Once I dwelt in that place from which flows the Little River of Flowers. It was my Eden and there I found home, a belonging. A sense of place for me. In that special valley I would walk among my friends the Giant Folk. In that place it was as if time stood still, just as do those gentle giants. In one favoured place in that valley, there was a grove of trees that I loved to be among, entranced by their beauty of form, and lifted by the healing scents which they released into the forest. Their stems were exquisite, standing grey-white and from which extended slender branches which gently bowed towards the ground then to the sky as they grew outwards. Their skin was smooth and fragrant, and cool to the touch. I loved the sheen of their leaves, and would pick a few from time to time, in the manner of years gone by. With water from that Little River of Flowers, I would make an infusion, which I found quite a restorative, while at the same time, its aroma would transport me back to the peace of my grove of Pale Stems. Such is the magic of that valley.
“I loved to see the way my Pale Stem friends twisted upwards there, around each other, and truly drooped with moss and lichens, which would speak to me of the deep folds of the earth as I climbed their limbs, to rest among their rich scented foliage. In winter snow, they opened creamy waxen flowers which grew on the underside of their leaves, eschewing the light of the sun, sheltering from the ice and snow. I hung suspended in the night from the high limbs of my dear gentle giants. And in the blackness of a clear nights I saw the stars as do all tree creatures. Between the waxing and the wanings, were memories of moon shadow at ground and glimpses across wide pale night-silver landscapes to the High Mountain, its rock summit clothed in vestal snow. I slept with the sound of rain’s lullaby caressing my awning, and watched wide-eyes the first snow, sent in magic contentment by the Sky Spirits. Its quieting night-time labour touching all, brought on breeze, filling steadily, transforming for first light and dressing my beautiful Little Valley of Flowers, the High Mountain and its companions, dressing the Giant Folk, the Forest Youngsters and the Plant Families further below, in the winter confetti of the Forest. And how in the morning we looked and stretched, and touched and fluttered among the whiteness. I loved my little valley of flowers and all who lived within it.
“But then came a day of knowing. Such days carry a message in the morning air. A day grim with goblins and gendarmerie, of chains with cutting teeth. A day when my wonderful First Giant, home to me on many a night, patron of the Younger Folk, support for the creatures of the air, protector of those on the ground, one of the many tree spirits, my bastion, was felled.
“I wrote onto fine cloth how it happened – while it happened. The brute noise of execution. Of the tree-scream as First Friend cracked and fell, his youngster friends standing with him, falling too. Pale Stems they were, who fell with him. I wept at their loss, at my loss.
……….
‘By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.
For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.
How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?
If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.
If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.’
……….
“Yet I didn’t feel crushed, like I had perhaps expected. I was not broken. I felt strong. First Friend had fallen, and was taken by goblin cart through the streets of the town, tied down with chains and taken far to those mills of despair. And that had hurt me but had not weakened my resolve to continue the fight to protect all my Forest Friends. Indeed I was all the stronger for having endured First Friend’s felling. In the years following I have remembered First Friend whose spirit was with me in the town, where Lady Handmaiden abides, at the castle of the Red Queen and in many other places in this land. First Friend is with me now … and so it is that I came to this Tower in the Wilderness, to protect the other Giant Folk of the forest, the youngsters, the tree spirits, the plant families, the birds and the creatures below. In doing so the evil spell cast over the land by the Lady Handmaiden has caused me to remain in this very Tower as I watch out for the Folk of the Forest. It is my Watchtower.”

[t.b.cont/…]