I am having an affair. We sit together most nights in the bath usually around 9pm. Sometimes he comes later than me.
There is silence, yet the conversation runs deep. He has jewel black eyes like the seeds of a papaya and lustrous skin. He is rather cute. Our affair has been going for a few years. I don’t see him for some months usually in winter. He likes to surprise me, yet we always meet in the bath.
It’s a hands-off affair. We don’t have any ‘love’ accessories, no ‘made in China’ rubber balls or plastic toys, or synthetic accoutrements to end up in landfill and certainly no bath bubbles!
Our lives depend on nature’s success
Naked I marvel at him and he at I. This relationship is free, no cooking extravagant meals to accommodate his every whim, no expense bills, he takes care of all his medical needs.
As I lie in the bath submerged toes pointed high like a corpse waiting to leave earthly realms I hear the cicadas hymn, then the birds silence the night.
I wonder whilst staring into the eyes of my lover ‘Fred’ why humanity struggles to protect nature yet our joy and life depends on it.
I have laid with lizards, eyed up echidnas, and had a fleeting love affair with a willie wagtail that, to this day, I can’t explain – yet it was wild. My sweety tweety would greet me each day as I stepped out of the car shaking her tail feather until I paid attention and she followed me around the yard vying for my attention. I had a red parrot arrive on my car door detaining me from what I will never know, yet this bird left its imprint on my heart.
These connections have a frequency. Timeframes are fluid and once tapped in, I understand the interconnection the rain brings the cockatoos, and the dry the echidna. Forest pigeons forage early. I am never alone. I dated a moth for months. I feel the patterns of how the jigsaw puzzle of nature works and marvel at how the ancient masters have learnt to live with, rather than at the expense of, nature.
Indigenous people have totems when they are born. Each First Nation person has a least four totems. A personal totem recognises an individual’s strengths and weaknesses and creates an link for that person to the land, air, and geographical characteristics. They also define people’s roles and responsibilities and their relationship with each other and creation. Totems are not owned; they are accounted for. Each person has a responsibility in ensuring the protection of their totem and passing it on from one generation to the next. Imagine if at birth we were assigned a totem?
More than one animal to worship
Ironically as we witness wildlife’s demise of dwindling ecosystems, and robbing plants and animals, we are not worshipping wildlife but instead the dog. The number of dogs rises in leaps and bounds. Half the population owns one or more.
Community boards are awash with lost dogs, pet sitters needed, and our phones are saturated with paws and ‘fur babies’. People are seduced into more with doggy day care and pet resorts to outsource their dogs’ care. Beaches, planes, and parks are being given over to make room for the dog.
Dogs are ‘decaninesed’, put in trolleys, and parked at cafes in prams. Parks are pungent dominating the seasons with wee or the stench of hot plastic and poo bags. Our lives, and those of others are increasingly dominated by the needs of dogs.
I love them too, yet it feels out of balance. I feel it’s time for humanity to reassess and consider how we can forge relations between humans and nature, consciously creating more space for wildlife to thrive.
That morning I had to shout to the man wearing headphones, with the dachshund on Byron’s Main Beach. The sea running past him in silence. ‘No dogs allowed’ please.
He ignored my words oblivious to the fact that a family of oystercatchers are training their chicks to catch pipis and left traumatised by his dog.
The moon is up, I look into the eyes of my lover Fred, who is of course a handsome green tree frog, and dream of people and totems.
Alison Drover is an environmental business strategist and nature spokesperson.
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