Copyright Alan Whitehead & Earthschooling: No Part of this book, post, URL, or book excerpt may be shared with anyone who has not paid for these materials.
Alan speaks in a very symbolic and esoteric manner in some parts of his books. Although they can be read anthroposophically, passages speaking of Atlantis, archangels, gods, etc. do not need to be taken literarily to be meaningful. The more you read, the more you will realize he uses many different religions to express ideas in a symbolic manner and not in a religious manner. His writings are not religious. In some places his writings are meant to refer to religious events in a historical way. In some places he is using religious figures (from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Paganism, Ancient Roman and Greek Religions, etc.) in a symbolic manner. However, at no point is he promoting a specific religion or speaking from a religious point of view.
I have kept the writing as close to one-hundred percent original so you will also find that he speaks of Australia often and some spelling or manners of speaking may be cultural. Any words I have changed are presented like this: <word>.
Also keep in mind that these books are written by a Waldorf teacher with decades of experience who also studied with a Steiner student himself, so he speaks to an audience that is dedicating their lives to the Waldorf method without exception.
Because of this, all of his views are not reflected in the Earthschooling curriculum and not all of them may be ones you want to embrace or are able to use. In all of Alan Whitehead’s writings the opinions are his own and may not align with Earthschooling or Waldorf Books. In some cases, we will be updating some of these chapters in the future with additional and/or updated information.
Ultimately, however, as I read through these passages I find I can distill wisdom from even those paragraphs that do not resonate with me.
We invite you to read with an open mind and heart and with eagerness to learn and discuss…
IN SEARCH OF THE RIFLE BIRD
An Australian Rainforest Odyssey
“The Paradise Rifle Bird is the most southerly of the many birds of paradise species – it is the avian snow leopard of Australian faunal lore; rarely ever seen but breathtaking when it is”.
If your name doesn’t begin with O at the O’Reilly guest House in the green heart of the Lamington National Park in Southeast Queensland, you ten to feel like a second-class citizen.
This is Alan O’Whitehead reporting!
1911 was the year the O’Reilly family moved to Green Mountains in the form of eight sturdy young men. They carried little else than their enthusiasm for pioneering adventure, a parcel of land grants, and of course their tree-felling equipment: young men with names of saints, like Luke, Patrick, and Joseph. This sanctified nomenclature holds good even today on the mountain, with a plethora of Michaels, Vincents, Katherines, and Tomothys decorating the family tree.
The transformation they made to a small part of the beautiful mountain aligns The O’Reilly boys, from a conservationist viewpoint, with Scrooge McDuck’s nemesis, The Beagle Boys! To be fair though, one must be aware of the mentality prevailing in Australian rural life in the early 20th Century. The wilderness seemed illimitable, empire building was the duty of every loyal British subject; and clearing land to produce wealth and traditional practice.
Indeed, a stern condition of land grants as the imperative to clear the forest – as soon as possible and as much as possible. As such, an unholy combination of youthful ignorance and government policy was the main culprit in the de-forestation of our wonderful continent.
However, the harm done to the pristine McPherson Ange wilderness by the O’Reillys has been repaid a thousand-fold by their descendants. Who, because of their tireless efforts to preserve the large tracts of remaining rainforest, with all the stunning beauty and variety it contains, could well earn them the sobriquet – The O’Greenies!
The O’Reillys owe a considerable amount of their national profile to the selfless and heroic actions on one of their finest sons, Bernard.
It was in February 1937, that a Stinson passenger plane crashed in the McPherson Ranges – against all external evidence, but driven by a bushman’s hunch, Bernard set out on foot in the most rugged terrain on the continent to search for the plane – on the face of it, an improbably and irrational thing to do. Yet he did find the wreckage where hundreds failed; and saved the lives of two survivors in the process.
The adventure is detailed in his book Green Mountains, in which he proves to be not only a sensitive observer of man and nature, but a considerable literary talent as well.
“Because the male rifle bird choses a very large display branch high up in the canopy, all you can see is an occasional glimpse of his sickle-beaked head.”
But before the O’Greenies, came the O’Greedies – circa 1890: rival gangs of cedar-getters quickly realized the wealth of mighty trees dotted throughout the forest. The enterprising who got in first hoped to grow fat on the insatiable European appetite for this finest of cabinet timbers – red cedar. One group moved through the forest in Spring, when the new leaf of these glorious deciduous trees makes them easy to spot from high vantage points. The O’Greedies then proceeded to lay claim to every mature red cedar by felling it.
No plan for the extraction of the timber had been arrived at, and when the time came to remove it, the task, due to the rugged country, proved insurmountable – most of the logs rotting on the forest floor!
There are still no red cedars in Lamington National Park, as no seed trees survived – the long arm of greed has reached across a whole century. Will the people in a hundred years be saying similar unkind things about our generation? Alas, it seems so. With the exception of the demise of the cedars, the forest was fairly pristine when the O’Reilly arrived in 1011 and , due to their continued diligence – and the proclaiming of the area as a national park in 1015 – it still is.
The Green Mountains tourist area is an ant’s nest of activity, with coaches coming and going, a busy camping area, a beautifully appointed guest house and National Parks and Wildlife activities.
But merge with the Being of the Forest along a cool and leafy track, and the hubbub is soon left behind. There are 140 kilometers of tracks from fully-sealed for wheelchair use, to real hope-and-leg-breakers, steep and rugged, but infinitely grand – such as the walk out to the Stinson wreck. An unforgettable arboreal experience closer to home is the Treetop Walk.
My favorite comic as a kid was Nyoka Queen of the Jungle; she lived up in the trees on great branches as wide as buses. How I felt like Nyoka when I tentatively stepped onto the swaying suspension bridge of the Treetop Walk. But soon I was reveling in the cat bird’s-eye-view of the teeming life-forms -masses of orchids, epiphytes and ferns on truck and bough – tree gardens sublime. Then I climbed two terrifyingly steep ladders to a viewing platform right into the canopy! Up here I felt like… like … even Nyoka didn’t go this high!
“A group of Canadians had only been in the park one day, when a pair of rifle birds came down out of the canopy in full view. I’ve been searching for them for 30 years and I still haven’t seen one.”
The Being of the Forest shyly reveals something new on every walk, such as a blue-eyed satin bower bird’s playground; a beautifully constructed display bower, ornamented with bits and pieces (mainly blue), like flowers and pegs. The male bird also often paints the bower with the blue-violet satin of the ink week. Beauty is –literally – in the eye of the beholder in Bower Bird Land; the grey-eyed spotted bower birds of the inland decorate their bowers with grey objects, like bones and shells – the yellow-eyed golden bower birds of North Queensland seek ornament of – a gold color! The tracks also often pass the large compost heaps of the mound-building brush turkeys.
The ‘turkeylings’ arrive as orphans into the world, but Dad, with wise forethought, has left, the up to 48 chicks a rich inheritance; the great combusting mound has not only provided warmth to incubate the eggs, it has localized legions of tasty worms and insects; all busy breaking down the leaf litter from which the mound is composed. Lucky little ‘turkeylings’ don’t have far to look for lunch in that lot!
“Mounder Rounder makes his very own worm farms” my wife so succinctly put it “how infinitely wise is Mother Nature.”
Some of this wisdom wears off for some animals with domestication, apparently. Years ago, when the packhorses made the mountain ascent/descent, carrying goods and guests, they would approach a particularly perilous and narrow section of the track with some trepidation. There was a perpendicular cliff wall on the inside, and a drop of hundreds of feet on the outside. The horses would walk right on the outside edge – they were afraid of the cliff! They were wrong of course, over time, three of them fell to their deaths. Sensibly, the humans close to ride shank’s pony through that section.
The Being of the Forest lifted a misty veil for us on one walk to reveal a garden of phosphorescent fungi – readily identified even in daylight by a kind of death-flesh pallor. When we eagerly returned in the less-then-reassuring dark of night, we were held in awe by the mystery and beauty of this wonderous creation as it spread it massive growths three meters up a rotting stump, bathing its surroundings (including us) in an eerie blue-green glow – magical.
However, when our torch revealed very large dingo tracks in the mud nearby, we repaired to the comfort of the Guest House with what an uncharitable observer might describe as ‘unseemly haste’.
And speaking of dingos, it would appear that since the original wild animals have cross-bred with savage farm Alsatians, they are larger; hence more dangerous to stock than previously. One O’Reilly lamented that of 60 valves born last season, 54 were taken by dingo/dogs, mostly just after birth. Tourists used to attract the dingos into the camping area by throwing them meant (shades of Azaria); but then the avaricious canines ate all the little tame wallabies, or pademelons. This practice of feeding the dingos is now verboten, and the pademelons are back; emerging at twilight to nibble the verdant lawns.
Pademelon is an aboriginal word meaning ‘big foot’; funny how our Latinism for the kangaroos and wallabies, ‘macropod’, also means big foot. The dry dingo dropping I found on a bush path and carefully pulled apart, had no calf remains; just the jewelry-fine bones of small forest animals and various tufts of colored fur. Amateur naturalists can’t afford to be squeamish!
One tall, dead tree by the track had a neat, round hollow near the top; a couple of polite knocks on the truck by our guide aroused the disgruntled occupant. A grey feathered head peered down at us – we couldn’t believe it, one of the rarest of bird sightings – the tiny owlet nightjar, or fairy owl – the only nocturnal bird that catches its prey on the wing! With a dismissive blink, the sleepy star retired again.
“Look! Look!” one ardent bird watcher shrieked “Two white goshawks coming over the hill!”
“Gosh!” I exclaimed as I fumbled for my binoculars; but the beautiful raptors scythed away out of sight. Crushed with disappointment, I was putting the glasses away again just as one of the birds swept in from behind to inspect us! Such aerodynamics, such economy of motion, such uncompromising elegance – then it was gone.
The female white goshawk could well be a Women’s Lib emblem; she is up to twice as large as the male, and a more aggressive hunter – being keenly sought after for that less-then-noble pastime of the ‘nobility’, falconry. Diurnal birds of prey seem to evoke a profound respect – envy even. Take the mighty wedge tailed eagle, often spotted around the national park suspended on a rising thermal.
Nesting pairs actually mark out the topography of a region with an invisible three-mile grid (human interference withstanding). Nests will also be about three miles apart in every direction. Apparently territorial concerns even extend into the sunny heights! Soaring eagle, on their unhurried search for supper, will usually respect this esoteric cartography and not cross into a neighbor’s province.
And to another territorial convention, “See that tree trunk;” said a particularly well-informed Guest Hose guide. I did of course, but quietly considered it unremarkable “that fretwork of scratches – that’s where a greater glider regularly lands; the marks are its signature, the tree is its land title – and this is its territory.” Suddenly the tree became infinitely fascinating, as did every other tree trunk (sans scratches) in the vicinity. There’s a whole language to learn in the forest – The Writing of the Bush – what a wonderful lesson unit to teach primary children (see my book Genii of Language). That was certainly the major curriculum strand for tribal aboriginal ‘pupils’ – till we de-educated them! This nature-wisdom concept is nourishment for allyoungsters; especially if cloaked in imagery.
Tree trunks are marvelous in their own right – there is a veritable permanent exhibition in the Rainforest Tree Trunk Art Gallery; from the mottled patterns of pink, grey and green of the sassafras, to the clutching network of the strangler fig as it loves a giant booyong to death in its terrible, unrelenting embrace.
However, the strangler is not all villain, being one of the most productive fruiting trees in the forest; its harvest season lasting for over four months, providing birds and animals with a rich and reliable food source. Also, due to its many moisture-holding crevices, it harbors the best ‘tree gardens’ in the forest.
Then there are the great moss-covered buttresses of the Antarctic beech trees, said by Bernard O’Reilly in his book to be no longer able to reproduce, by seed that is (though they do sucker). Come to think of it, I’ve never seen a sprightly young independent beech tree; all seem to have an antediluvian hoariness about them.
Folklore tells us that aboriginal warriors cut shields out of the thin, light, but strong buttresses of rainforest trees. I’m not surprised; on one amazing specimen the great roots were created with spirit-level accuracy. The fluted trunks of the giant stinging tree are rather like free-form Doric columns. The timber is a poor-man’s balsa – incredibly light, hence subject to rapid rot – the Being of the Forest can reduce a 100-foot giant to dark, rich soil in about 3 years.
Development of the stinging tree’s high toxicity seems to have been as a defense against humans only, as insects love the plate sized leaves, eating around the offending hairs. But most remarkable are the arboreal animals, like possums, which feed happily on the whole leaf!
How their soft mouthparts resist the agonizing sting is another of nature’s closely guarded secrets.
“In 120 years of searching, only nine nests of the paradise rifle bird have ever been discovered – these are invariably decorated with sloughed snake skins”.
Gloomy statistics tell us that world rainforest is disappearing at the rate of a football field a minute. These probably don’t take into account the jungles of eastern Australia, which are estimated to be actually advancing on the adjacent eucalypt forests and pasture (where they can at about a foot a year. On a perimeter line of thousands of miles, this is a lot of new rainforests. In fact, only climate and man can subdue the rainforest; it won’t even burn naturally.
Yet The Being of the Rainforest easily encroaches on other floral communities. She does this – much like some people! – by first sending her unruly family ahead to break down resistance.
This begins with an advance of her precocious children’s vines and thorn bushes, like lawyer and blackthorn; followed by her string-bean adolescents, such as wattles and bleeding-heart trees. Growing out of the tangle; these provide a dappled canopy for the young rainforest adults to germinate, like rosewood and hoop pine: which in turn mature into responsible middle-age, where they cradle and nourish the babies, the fabulous Hanging Gardens of orchids and crow’s nest ferns (named, incidentally, from the crow’s nest of old sailing vessels; which were named after the nest of the European crow, which is no relation to the Australian … oh forget it!).
So, yet another rainforest has been created, one of the most stable yet still slowly evolving environments on earth. Sometimes an old Great Grandfather, in the form of a mighty tallowwood tree, stands alone in the rainforest. How did it get there? It gears a silent and enduring testimony to the former existence of another Forest Being – the dry-country eucalypts, now long gone in our small scenario.
This is due to the gum trees’ inability to germinate in the prevailing heavy-canopy, low-light conditions. So, the battle for survival of The Being of the Eucalypt was lost. But the war? A few thousand years is the flick of a carpet python’s tongue to Mother Nature.
“One day a rifle bird of paradise came to bathe in our tank. We watched him for about 10 minutes, his electric green-blue shot colors glittering in the sunlight.”
Lost battles are sometimes a feature even for some people in a hand-in-hand walk with The Being of the Forest – lost battles with leeches at least. On one sun-dappled jaunt, my wife Susan actually allowed eight of the slimy ten-pins a generous taste-test on various parts of her anatomy. I had none; but I did have a helpful suggestion, “They’re probably sucking out bad blood.” Oddly, this only elicited a gratuitous and unprintable response!
I also had another theory: leeches mostly come aboard onto the legs, right? Men, with their highly sensitized leg hairs, feel the tongue-like annelids’ movement almost at once. But women with their shaved legs… Well, it’s only a theory.
What is not a theory is that, over the last 80 years Lamington National Park, covering over 40,000 hectares, has been snatched from the jaws of resource-exploitation by people with vision and courage.
It is one of the only large areas in Australia of pristine, mostly unlogged sub-tropical rainforest, of staggering age, beauty, and complexity. Even its topographic features, including 500 exquisite waterfalls and towering volcanic bluffs, are of world class.
Yet it is often the small marvels that leave the most indelible impression. Like the angle headed dragon we saw with its spiky prehistoric form peering quizzically into the camera lens. Or the flash of obsidian-black and sun-gold as a regent lower bird beguiles us with its other-worldly loveliness. Perhaps the last word should go to Bernard O’Reilly, the man who, among other, assured our continued access to this wonderous heritage:
“When a riffle bird flies or displays, the sound of the feathers is like rustling silk, delicate and captivating.”
(On the subject of only learning things that one thinks may be needed in later life.) “In a human being much of what might appear unnecessary for outer life nevertheless plays an important part, just as we find it in nature. Only compare the infinite number of herring eggs, distributed all over the seas, with the number of herrings actually born, and you could easily reproach nature for being grossly wasteful. However, this can only be the opinion of people who do not know of the powerful spiritual effects the perished herring eggs have upon the growing herrings. So-and-so-many eggs have to die so that so-and-so-many eggs may thrive. As in teaching, these things are all interconnected.” Rudolf Steiner, Domach, 1923
FROM: Sacred Fauna: Zoology in Light of Steiner’s Spiritual Science
Four Kingdoms Companion volume to: Sacred Places Minerals & Land; Sacred Fauna Botany; Sacred Faces A Study of Man
Important Earthschooling Notes
Copyright Alan Whitehead & Earthschooling: No Part of this book, post, URL, or book excerpt may be shared with anyone who has not paid for these materials.
Alan speaks in a very symbolic and esoteric manner in some parts of his books. Although they can be read anthroposophically, passages speaking of Atlantis, archangels, gods, etc. do not need to be taken literarily to be meaningful. The more you read, the more you will realize he uses many different religions to express ideas in a symbolic manner and not in a religious manner. His writings are not religious. In some places his writings are meant to refer to religious events in a historical way. In some places he is using religious figures (from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Paganism, Ancient Roman and Greek Religions, etc.) in a symbolic manner. However, at no point is he promoting a specific religion or speaking from a religious point of view.
I have kept the writing as close to one-hundred percent original so you will also find that he speaks of Australia often and some spelling or manners of speaking may be cultural. Any words I have changed are presented like this: <word>.
Also keep in mind that these books are written by a Waldorf teacher with decades of experience who also studied with a Steiner student himself, so he speaks to an audience that is dedicating their lives to the Waldorf method without exception.
Because of this, all of his views are not reflected in the Earthschooling curriculum and not all of them may be ones you want to embrace or are able to use. In all of Alan Whitehead’s writings the opinions are his own and may not align with Earthschooling or Waldorf Books. In some cases, we will be updating some of these chapters in the future with additional and/or updated information.
Ultimately, however, as I read through these passages I find I can distill wisdom from even those paragraphs that do not resonate with me.
We invite you to read with an open mind and heart and with eagerness to learn and discuss.
END NOTE
Alan has presented dialogue in his writings in an expressive form, where he tries to capture the accent of the person he was with to give his writing more authenticity and to allow the reader to “be with him” in his experience. In no place in his writings is he using expressive language to make fun of or demean the speaker. So, as a person with a linguistics and anthropology degree I find this enriching and informative to me as the reader. Thus, we have made the decision to leave all expressive writing in its original form.
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