Connections To The Earth

By Ross Lamond

This publication had its beginning back in the early 1980’s when Ross Lamond was trying to come to grips with establishing a plant nursery upon a bare, windswept plain not far from Terara on the New South Wales South Coast.
Ross had been a farmer used to farming by the acre or hectare, now becoming a nurseryman learning to farm by the square yard or metre. He realising his naivety in understanding what the soil and land was yielding to him, and he taking it for granted.
Coming to grips with a windswept plain, compacted and impoverished soil, lack of permanent water and extremes of weather led Ross onto a pathway towards an understanding of his surroundings.
At the time rural environmental issues were coming into prominence including dry land salinity, soil erosion, Eucalyptus dieback, habitat loss, weed invasion and vermin spread. These issues encouraged Ross to educate himself in caring for the land. He converted his windswept plain into a forest where plants could grow within protected surroundings and native birds could re- enter and establish their homes.
Ross was becoming an environmentalist.
He educated himself in environmental studies and realised we as humans were separating from the Earth as we adopted new technologies and mechanisation. We were ‘disconnecting’.
Ross continued his education through studies in urban and regional planning at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane. The studies convinced Ross we are also ‘disconnecting’ from the earth through urbanisation, and rural people from around the world are separating themselves from the land and their cultural heritage to move into cities and take aboard technologies of the day including the motor bike and mobile phone. These came with their advantages, but a price. They need money and the land wasn’t able to sustain these offerings (and others) from the West. Rural landscapes could no longer support those who were dependent upon them, and farmers and their children left for cities and towns and jobs.
This evolutionary trend is recent, for many older people amongst us in Australia, for example, remember our parents having to work the land using a horse drawn implement and mother washing the families clothes using a wood fire copper. They grew vegetables and ran chooks or ducks out in a backyard with its fruit trees and room for children to play in the raw earth. Their children grew up as part of the land and it supported them. Ross realised as they left or separated their dependency upon the land and turned towards technologies that drew them away from the bindingness of the soil beneath them, they left the Earth which supported their families for so long. Their is an inert intimacy being attached to the Earth.
Ross suggests in recent times a trend is emerging and there are those who seek a ‘reconnection’ to the land or to Nature in some way. Maybe it’s ‘reconnection’ through the garden, a walk in the park down the street, tending to some flowers in a pot, travelling to a bay or seaside, a river or landscape within a reserve or National Park. Endless ways and opportunities to ‘reconnect’, and its catching!
So here we are today. We were once ‘connected’ to the Earth beneath us. We ‘disconnected’ as we took on board mechanisation and the technologies of the day, and recently, we are learning to ‘reconnect’ as some of us realise Nature and the land is deeply engrained into our physic and we want to reattach in some way. We are seeking the balance that ‘Connectedness’ to the Earth offers us. It’s something we will climb aboard and remain.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ross Lamond
• Release date: Nov 9, 2013
• ISBN: 9780980758856

Ross Lamond

Ross Lamond is the youngest member of a well-known and respected dairy farming family of the New South Wales South Coast, Australia. He schooled away from home, completing secondary studies at Sydney Grammar School, Sydney. Upon leaving school, Ross returned to the family farm and over a forty year period, gained extensive experience in dairying, beef cattle production, sugarcane, small crop cultivation and horticulture. An ever present interest in the garden naturalised into that of a nurseryman, landscape gardener and grower of in ground trees for landscape. Concern about environmental issues such as tree decline, dry land salinity and habitat degradation led Ross into external studies in Environment at Mitchell College of Advanced Education at Bathurst, followed by post graduate studies in Urban and Regional planning at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane. A chance reading of a Feng Shui publication in 1998, introduced Ross to Feng Shui and its influence on our lives and surroundings. He applied some of its principles into the garden and developed his own interpretation of Feng Shui garnished through personal experience and observation. The interest has led Ross into a journey of self-discovery including that of nature, environmentalism and spirituality. It’s an ever growing interest. Ross lives by himself, has four grown up children, and likes to travel and garden and write about his experiences and observations.

Book preview

‘Connections to the Earth’

Published by RossLamond.com at Smashwords

Copyright © 2013 by Ross Lamond

All rights reserved.

This work is owned by Ross Lamond and may not be reproduced in whole or in part in any manner without the exclusive permission of the owner. All materials including photos, illustrations, diagrams and character names are subject to copyright.

Cover design by Jannette Tibbs

Cover Photo by Ross Lamond. Taken at Dorrigo, NSW, Australia

All quotations are attributed to Ross Lamond

For information regarding other books by Ross Lamond, please contact

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ISBN 978-0-9807588-5-6

About the Author

Ross Lamond is the youngest member of a well-known and respected dairy farming family of the New South Wales South Coast in Australia.

He schooled away from home, completing secondary school at Sydney Grammar School in Sydney.

Upon leaving school, Ross returned to the family farm and over a forty year period gained extensive experience in dairying, beef cattle production, sugar cane, small crop cultivation and horticulture. An ever present interest in the garden materialised into that of nurseryman, landscape gardener and grower of in ground trees for landscape.

Concern about environmental issues such as tree decline, dry land salinity and habitat degradation led Ross into external studies in Environment at Charles Sturt University at Bathurst followed by a Post Graduate in Urban and Regional Planning through the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane. He practiced his findings extensively.

A chance reading of a Feng Shui publication in 1998, introduced Ross to Feng Shui and its influence on our lives and surroundings. He applied some of its principles into the garden and developed his own interpretation of Feng Shui enhanced through personal experience and observation. The interest led Ross into a journey of self-discovery including environmentalism, nature and spirituality. It remains an ever growing interest.

Ross lives by himself, has four grown up children and likes to travel, garden and write about his experiences.

Contents

Introduction

Part A- Journeys and Discoveries

Bali Experience

Sri Lanka Experience

Visit to two Villages - Luang Prebang

Discoveries - Villages without Power Poles

Part B - Connection, Disconnection, Reconnection

Media Today - Newspaper Clippings

Miners versus Farmers - Care of the Land

Woven Cloth Scenario

The Indigenous Australian Aboriginal

Disconnection - Living in a Yang World

Changes in Social Structure and Lifestyle

Connectedness - ‘it’s good for the soul’

A Philosophical View to Connectedness

Food - Natural versus Processed

Currumbin Eco Village

Zen in a Kyoto Garden

Disconnection and Reconnection

Glossary

Connections to the Earth

Introduction

‘Connections to the Earth’, what a great term! I first became attached to it in 1984. At the time I was building a garden over 15 acres (6 hectares) outside of Terara, a small and historic village located on the floodplains of the Shoalhaven River. Terara is located about 2 hours south of Sydney.

During the early 1980’s, the district was going through a prolonged period of drought. In 1980, I planted 2/3000 native trees along the property boundaries to act as windbreaks and screening, and after a breaking of the drought in 1983, they started to ‘take off’.

The experience introduced something new to me. I wasn’t used to coping with drought, extreme exposure to wind, soil compaction, loss of soil fertility, and weed invasion over a small area of land. I had visions of creating a retail plant nursery surrounded by lush, green and colourful gardens, and commenced production of nursery plants on the property.

The winds were so severe I had to construct a twelve foot high tea-tree stake compound around the nursery. There it was, stuck onto a bare paddock, imaging something like a fort from the American Wild West. I even included an arched gated entry to help keep those midnight ramblers outside.

I was very naive to suggest people would come onto the bare Shoalhaven floodplain to buy plants from someone who had trouble keeping them in their pots during a windstorm then having to dig by shovel into swampy mud to get some water for the nursery.

My life was previously that of a farmer, content to farm over square hectares or acres. I became resurrected into that of a nurseryman learning to farm by the square yard or metre. In doing so I opened up a deep relationship with the smaller things that make up our surroundings. Paddocks became nursery beds, and crops and grass became nursery plants. I became aware all things come from the soil and if it’s not cared for, protected and nourished, it cannot be expected to produce what we ask of it. I also became aware of something else; we as humans contributed to the condition of the land I was trying to farm, understand, and come to grips with at Terara.

The previous owner continuously double cropped the soil for 14 years using a tractor driven rotary hoe. He grew corn for ensilage in summer months and green chop oats during winter, and over that period not fallowing or turning anything back into the soil. The farming operations severely compacted the soil. Repeated cultivation took away about one hundred and fifty millimeters of topsoil or about six inches.

I was angry at his ignorance and neglect, and realised he had no connection to that land other than use it for personal gain. He didn’t respect or care for the land. I know I’m being disrespectful of him because he was a successful cattle breeder and administrator of the dairying industry. He was not of the Earth as some farmers become and physically get soil in their hands, and there I was in my naivety, having to contend with his discarded land. He had lost his connection to the Earth, and I was finding one!

Others were losing their connection to the Earth too. About this time, within Australia for example, environmental issues were coming into prominence including; desertification of marginal farmland (huge dust storms occurring in western NSW); dry