Being Saved by Link Road Forest
In the western suburbs of Newcastle lies Link Road Forest — around 574 hectares of native eucalypt forest growing on former mining land. The forest is home to more than 20 threatened species, including squirrel gliders, glossy black cockatoos, powerful owls and several species of microbat. Much of this forest is now under threat from proposed housing development.
For this It’s Alive! gathering, Zen Open Circle member Jazz Andrews shared his experience of working alongside local residents in the campaign to protect Link Road Forest.
The talk explored not only what might be done to save the forest, but another question that had emerged through Jazz’s involvement in the campaign: what might it mean to be saved by Link Road Forest?
The discussion considered what happens when we truly begin to look, listen and receive what the living world offers us, and how Zen practice might find expression through community, politics, advocacy and our efforts to protect the places and beings around us.
Watch the talk
A recording of the talk and discussion is available here:
You can also learn more about Link Road Forest and the ongoing campaign to protect it here:
Jazz closed the gathering by reading “Rain at Daybreak” by W. S. Merwin, from his collection Garden Time.
Merwin was a poet, Zen practitioner and student of Robert Aitken Roshi, as well as a devoted conservationist. On degraded former pineapple plantation land in Hawai‘i, he and his wife Paula created an extraordinary palm forest that eventually became home to hundreds of palm species.
His life, poetry and environmental work are explored in the documentary Even Though the Whole World Is Burning, which is available to watch online:
Rain at Daybreak
by W. S. Merwin (from Garden Time)
One at a time the drops find their own leaves
Then others follow as the story spreads
They arrive unseen among the waking doves
Who answer from the sleep of the valley
There is no other voice or other time